324. Cathartic Video Games and Problematic Shipping: Amanda and Sarah Catch Up on Listener Email

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 324 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I am Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Today, Amanda and I are going to talk about cathartic video games, book recommendations, and problematic shipping. We have some listener email, and it is the greatest. Amanda starts out by talking about what is rocking her world from volunteering opportunities to video games that she is loving. Spoiler alert: she’s kind of hilarious. I talk about a book that I’m super curious about that involves death cleaning, and then we talk about listener email. We have email from a reader who loves her home library and has some thoughts on long-running series. We have email from a reader who struggles with a problematic ship, which basically, we just page Amanda. White courtesy phone, Amanda; please come to the phone. We also have email from a reader who needs some bisexual romance recommendations.

I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as we did, and congrats to everyone in Florida who regained the right to vote with the passage of Amendment 4, something that both Amanda and I wrote postcards to voters in support of.

If you would like to email us, please do. You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call us at 1-201-371-3272. That’s 1-201-371-3272. Don’t forget to leave your name – whatever name you want to use – so we can add you to a future episode. I do have some reader voicemail coming up soon, so please stay tuned for that.

I also don’t want to forget to mention that we talk about postcards to voters in this episode, and if you would like more information about that – even though election day is over, there are runoff elections going on in the US – if you’d like more information, go to postcardstovoters.org or text the word “hello” to 484-275-2229. So postcardstovoters.org or text the word “hello” to 484-275-2229. I am not an employee of Postcards to Voters, but both Amanda and I did volunteer with them, and it was pretty great.

This week’s podcast episode and the transcript are brought to you by Promise Me You by Marina Adair, available now from Montlake Romance. This is a heartening romance of friendship, second chances, and the healing power of love. Mackenzie Hart has made a career out of writing about eternal love, so when she finds her perfect match in Hunter Kane, she decides to put it all on the line. Irresistibly charming and drenched in alpha-male swagger, Hunter isn’t just the catch of the town – he’s also Mackenzie’s best friend. Only someone else beats her to the altar. After a fresh start and three years to recover, the last thing Mackenzie expects is for her old life to come knocking. Recently divorced, musician Hunter Kane wants to reconnect with the woman he left behind. Admitting his biggest mistake comes first. What comes next is up to Mackenzie. He hopes she’ll give him a second chance. He may have been the one to break her heart, but he knows he can also be the one to mend it. As a tenuous friendship turns into something more, Hunter’s life on the road beckons once again. Will love be enough to keep them together, or will their wildly different worlds be too much for them to overcome? Readers who fell in love with Jackson and Ally in the recent remake of A Star Is Born will swoon over this emotionally satisfying second-chance romance. Promise Me You by Marina Adair is available now from Montlake Romance.

Now, I am still test-driving the Sudio Nivå headphones, and I am digging them a lot, especially for phone calls, which I really dislike. I hate talking on the phone. I used to get really excited when the phone rang and it was for me, and apparently that is now, like, my least favorite thing. But having one little earbud in my ear and no cord tangling on my jacket is really pretty nifty, and they are very, very comfortable. I’m wearing them daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I wear them working out, walking the dogs, and wandering around my house. This week I was determined to nap, and I’m terrible at napping. I put them in my ears along with forty-five minutes of Brain.fm relaxing music, and they worked perfectly. They blocked out the sound of my son drumming, practicing drumming, and they weren’t uncomfortable against the pillow either. According to Sudio, the Nivå have 3.5 hours of playtime, they are easy to connect to a Bluetooth device, and the case is also the charging dock, with a little magnet so you put the correct earbud in the correct spot. I really like them, and I am really pleased that I get to offer you a coupon. So your discount code if you would like to try out a pair of Sudio Bluetooth headphones, you can order a pair for yourself with discount code SMART, S-M-A-R-T, which gives you fifteen percent off any purchase and free worldwide shipping. To see the complete collection, you can go to sudio.com, and if you decide to order, fifteen percent off with code SMART, S-M-A-R-T. Thank you, Sudio! That’s pretty nifty!

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you very, very much! You are helping me keep the podcast going, you’re making sure every episode is transcribed, and you’re making sure that each episode is accessible to everyone. If you would like to join the Patreon community, you can have a look to patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month.

I want to thank some of the Patreon folks personally, so to Roxanne, Amy, Lisa, Jeff and Will, thank you so much for being part of the Patreon group.

I also have compliments, which is awesome.

To Elizabeth: You are more endearing and generate more positive feelings than ninety-nine percent of baby animal GIFs on the internet.

And to Roxanne: One of your best friends from school just named their puppy after you because the received levels of happiness and joy are about the same.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and if you are wondering, are there other ways to support the show? Absolutely! Leave a review wherever you listen; they are monstrously helpful. You can tell a friend; you can subscribe; you can yell out the window; you can just, you know, force people to listen, although I don’t necessarily recommend that. But if I’m in your eardrums right now, thank you very, very much for hanging out with me each week.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the show as to who this is, and I will have a preview of what is coming up on Smart Bitches this week. And of course I will have a terrible, terrible joke. I say every week that they’re bad, but this one is also pretty terrible. Like, I’ve told it to several people, and they just sort of stare at me, which is, like, my favorite joke reaction. I will also have links to all of the things that we talk about, including video games and different places on the internet and, of course, all the books we mention.

But for now, let’s do this interview. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: So you have two things –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – that are rocking your world. Please tell me all the things that are rocking your world.

Amanda: So I’ve recently switched antidepressant meds because I’ve been feeling so helpless and angry and just low energy and, like, really defeated.

Sarah: Which sucks.

Amanda: And I wonder why. [Laughs]

Sarah: Totally sucks. That’s not how you want to walk around all day.

Amanda: Yeah. So I’ve been taking steps to kind of like channel my energy and my anger. One is, I picked up Postcards to Voters –

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: – thanks to you, Sarah. I’m doing my second batch this week for Second Chances in Florida.

Sarah: Which is a cause I imagine that you have some personal connection to, being as you’re from Florida!

Amanda: [Laughs] Yeah! And I have felons in my family.

Sarah: Wait, holy shit, really?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Oh shit! I did not, did not have any idea! Oh God!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Holy shit! Okay, well yeah, that is a personal cause to you.

Amanda: [Laughs] And the, I’ve been trying to, like, channel my energy and channel my rage, and I picked up Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which came out at the beginning of October; it’s a video game.

Sarah: I have heard about this. Tell me all the things.

Amanda: I haven’t played any of the previous Assassin’s Creed games because you can’t play as a woman, and that is a huge selling point for me, and it’s not a big deal, but also, like, there are other games that I can play and choose to spend my money on.

Sarah: Oh, I, I totally understand that. I love playing Dragon Age: Inquisition as a woman.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, all of the characters I’ve created have been women.

Amanda: So this is not quite that depth as, Assassin’s Creed compared to Dragon Age. You pick playing as a man or a woman. There’s no customization. Like, they’re, they are characters, essentially –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – pre-made characters. And there is some romance to it, but it’s not pivotal to any storyline. You just kind of like flirt and bang it out around Greece, and – [laughs] – like, that’s it. But what I’ve been loving is, if you pick the woman – her name’s Kassandra – she is just a gorgeous, buff powerhouse. She’s got these amazing arm muscles, and there’s just something so sat- – you’re, like, a mercenary – and there’s something so satisfying about, like, creeping up behind a dude and just, like, stabbing him right in the taint and then, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – murdering him. It is so satisfying. And then you just go around Greece murdering power-hungry dudes.

Sarah: This sounds amazing!

Amanda: [Laughs] And –

Sarah: I want to do this all day! Oh my God, my productivity is so shot now!

Amanda: And there’re so many strong women in this game, like warrior women. Like your mom is the daughter of the great Spartan Leonidas, and she gives you this cool spear.

Sarah: It’s dangerous to go along; your mom gives you – excuse me – it’s dangerous to go alone; your mom gives you a spear?!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs] I love this world!

Amanda: And there’s lots of, like, moral dilemmas like, hey, my dad threw me off a cliff, and he thought I was dead, and I reunite with him. Do I kill him for throwing me off said cliff, or do I let him live? Or, like, my brother has turned into a power-hungry demigod. Do I kill him or try to reconnect with him? Like – [laughs]

Sarah: Oooh, that’s tough, man!

Amanda: There’s also this one side quest where it’s an older woman, and she cannot be satisfied in the bedroom, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – she feels bad for her husband. She and her husband have an understanding that, you know, she can, like, sleep with other people, but she wants to, like, reconnect sexually with her husband, so she has you on a quest to, like, get these ingredients to make like a, like an ancient Greek Viagra, and it consists of deer tongue and bear scrotums, so you –

Sarah: Oh my God!

Amanda: – [laughs] – you have to kill these bears to get their balls for, for a quest, so –

Sarah: Dude.

Amanda: – lots of murdering. You get to ride a cool horse. I like it. It’s really, it’s really been cathartic and helpful.

[Laughter]

Sarah: This is amazing!

Amanda: And then the second thing is, I saw a movie on Friday called Bad Times at the El Royale. It’s two and a half hours long, and when I saw that –

Sarah: Dude!

Amanda: – I was like, ooh boy! [Laughs] I don’t know.

Sarah: Dude!

Amanda: But I never once thought, like, how much time is left on here? So the pacing is great. I enjoyed it. All the –

Zeb: Woof woof woof woof!

Sarah: Zeb disagrees. Just please –

Amanda: You’ve got to watch it! You haven’t seen it yet, Zeb!

Sarah: [Zeb voice] No, I don’t like it; it’s two hours long!

Amanda: There’s –

Sarah: [Still Zeb voice] I’m old, and I have to pee.

Amanda: There are trigger warnings for, it’s set in the late ‘60s, so there is, like, racism and kidnapping and violence and murder. But it’s very noir-esque.

Sarah: Which I know is totally your jam.

Amanda: Yeah. Chris Hemsworth plays a charismatic cult leader, and I’d never seen him play a bad guy in a movie, so it was interesting. But he’s, like, hairless. He’s, like, smooth as a baby seal.

[Laughter]

Amanda: And he, there’s this scene where he’s, like, doing this little, like, wiggly, shirtless dance, and he’s got, like, a slice of pie in his hand while, like, Deep Purple is playing.

Sarah: This is amazing!

Amanda: [Laughs] Jeff Bridges is in it. He’s such a great actor. He plays – spoilers for this movie, by the way – he plays a former bank robber who’s out of prison, and he has dementia, and it’s, I, and I have had two family members, one passed away from dementia, and my grandmother has dementia. So it was very realistic, his portrayal.

Sarah: Oh my gosh.

Amanda: Cynthia Erivo is in it. She won a Tony and a Grammy for her role in The Color Purple. She does a lot of singing in the movie, and every time she sang I started crying. Her voice is so beautiful, and her character and Jeff Bridges’ character have this really great friendship, and there’s this moment where Chris Hemsworth’s cult leader – his name is Billy Lee – has everyone kind of held hostage, and he tries to barter with Cynthia’s character. He’s like, either you sing for me or we’re going to play this game that’s going to get one of you killed, and Jeff Bridges’ character is like, don’t do it; he doesn’t deserve to hear you sing, and it was so beautiful. But she also has this great speech where, like, Billy Lee as the cult leader has all these, like, stupid speeches about, like, power and stuff like that, and – [laughs] – she just goes off on him. She’s like, I don’t care! She’s like, I’m tired of, like, men with a lot to say telling me all these things in order to justify themselves wanting to have sex with whoever they want to have sex with. She’s like, I’m bored.

Sarah: Oh ma’am.

Amanda: And he goes to interrupt her, and she says, I’m tired. I would rather listen to the rain. ‘Cause it was, like, raining outside. And then he, like, shuts up real quick.

Sarah: Whoa!

Amanda: But this last part kind of segues into the reason why we’re doing this podcast, is that –

Sarah: Yes?

Amanda: – I had, like, an OTP in the movie. Billy Lee as the cult leader, he is a fucking terrible person, and the character, I think her name was Emily or Emma, played by Dakota Johnson. Now, Dakota Johnson’s character – I’m just going to say Emily, ‘cause I can’t remember if it’s Emma or Emily – but her sister has joined Billy Lee’s cult, and she rescues her, but her sister is kind of like too far gone. So I shipped them together, Emily and Billy Lee, not in a, like a sexual way, like I wanted them to have, like, a Happily Ever After, but – I suppose this is kind of like working out more of my anger – I wanted her to kind of like use her feminine wiles to make him vulnerable and then murder him. Like –

[Laughter]

Amanda: – that’s, like, my murder OTP, I suppose.

Sarah: [Laughs] So your OTP of, I want her to kill him.

Amanda: After making him, like, smitten with her. Yeah.

Sarah: Oooh.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So you just wanted a visual representation of just an unstoppable woman bringing a terrible man down.

Amanda: Yes, yes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, I, yeah, I get it.

Amanda: But it’s a good movie.

Sarah: I –

Amanda: Everyone should go see it if it sounds interesting to you. I promise the two and a half hours goes by quickly. There’s a lot of twists and turns, a lot of things that I didn’t expect to happen happened, and I, I really enjoyed it. I believe the director also did the movie Cabin in the Woods, which has Joss Whedon, which ugh, bleah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: But the movie’s pretty good, and Chris Hemsworth plays a, a dummy in Cabin in the Woods, but if you liked that one, then you’ll like Bad Times at the El Royale, I think.

Sarah: So this is what’s rocking your world.

Amanda: Yeah, these two.

Sarah: I don’t know if I can watch it, but I love that it exists, and I love that you’re just like, I’m going to be an unstoppable character in this videogame and just stab men.

Amanda: Oh yeah, that’s all I do. It’s great.

Sarah: How hard is it to pick up?

Amanda: Not hard! I mean, there’s some –

Sarah: Is it like fishing in Stardew Valley, ‘cause I still can’t do that.

Amanda: [Laughs] No, there is some –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – like, thread that connects the previous games which I don’t quite understand, but it really doesn’t matter. Like, it plays such a tiny amount in terms of, like, the full game play that I’ve sunk into it –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – that it really doesn’t matter if you can’t follow it. Like, it’s not even that important, in my opinion. But I have it for the PS4 –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and I find it pretty easy to, like, follow and control and, you know, just lots of button mashing. It’s just like, you hit R1 over and over to attack, and then you hit, like, another button for special effects, so it’s just, like, moving and stabbing, and that’s pretty much – and dodging. So.

Sarah: Wow. Okay, I think I might need to pursue this.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’ve been joking about getting a PS4, ‘cause you told me about that game where you, where it crosses, like, Stardew Valley and dragon raising?

Amanda: Battle Chef Brigade.

Sarah: Right! I, and that’s only the PS4, right?

Amanda: I think there’s, it’s on Steam!

Sarah: Wait, hold on, it is?

Amanda: Is that the one I was talking about? It was like Iron Chef –

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: – and, like, a dungeon crawler and –

Sarah: All right. If it’s on Steam, then I might have to go pursue that.

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Awesome!

Amanda: But Assassin’s Creed is great. You get, like, a ship, and, like, the ship captain that joins you, his name is Barnabas? He’s, like, your little cheerleader. He just loves everything you do and supports you in everything and – [laughs] – cheers you on, and then, like, while your ship is going, your, like, crew members sing, like, little sea songs to you while you’re going.

Sarah: So they sing to you too.

Amanda: They sing, yeah! They sing, like, little, I don’t know, like, sing-a-ling songs while you’re –

Sarah: Little sea chanteys?

Amanda: Yeah! While you’re going from, like, island to island.

Sarah: All right, I love this. Thank you!

Amanda: You’re welcome!

Sarah: I downloaded a book from the library today about Swedish death cleaning.

Amanda: What?

[Laughter]

Sarah: So a friend of mine from college sent me a text and was like, did you see this? And I was like, no? It is a book called – hang on, I did pull up her text – it is a book that is all about the idea of Swedish death cleaning. I don’t know how to say this ‘cause there’s umlauts involved, but basically, it is the idea that you should clean up your home so that after you die, no one has to clean up your mess.

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: And it’s written by this Swedish woman who gives her age as between eighty and a hundred, which I thought was incredibly awesome, and –

Amanda: [Laughs] It’s just like, it’s none of your damn business, but just know I am older than you.

Sarah: Exactly. I’m old as fuck; piss off. Like, that’s all you need to know. So she has cleaned out after her late husband, friends, family, and in the interview on, on the, in the link that my friend sent me, she says, and then these people leave a mess after them. Did they think that they were immortal? And I was like, damn!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Now, part of this is growing up in a hoard house, but I get a serious rush from throwing things into the donate bin. I get a serious rush from, like, cleaning out my closet? I am, I have alphabetized my, my Lazy Susan spice rack –

Amanda: Ooh!

Sarah: – so that I know approximately where to find the spices, and if the lids are the same for cumin and cinnamon then I have a little paint marker, and I write the names on top. Like, organizing and getting rid of shit gives me a full-body rush.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I own these endorphins; I cultivate them; I pet them. They’re like little, fuzzy, loving endorphins; I adore them. So she sends me this book, and I’m like, I wonder if my library has it. My library has it! It’s available right now! I am going in on Swedish death cleaning. I’m very curious to hear about this.

Amanda: It sounds really interesting.

Sarah: I’ve already downsized because we moved, and I wasn’t paying someone to move some of my junk across state lines. Now I’m ready to go for, like, round two: über-simplistic living.

Amanda: Well, when I had to, like, clean out my grandmother’s house when she passed away last year, there was, like, a whole shed, or, like, the garage was just filled with my grandfather’s stuff who, he had died the year before, and he was a –

Sarah: Oh gosh.

Amanda: – computer teacher and just like a weird little, like, mad scientist inventor wizard, so he had, like, weird, like, tech stuff and bits and pieces everywhere, and that garage was just filled with, like, tools and wires, and it was like, oh my dear God.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And it’s really hard in that situation to separate value. Like, is this actually worth money? Is this entirely sentimental? How do I evaluate all of this? It’s really hard.

Amanda: Especially as, like, a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Like, cool! I don’t know how any of this works!

Sarah: [Laughs] I know.

Amanda: And now I have to figure out what to do with my grandparents’ stuff and their house. It was like, okay!

Sarah: The funny thing is, so Adam comes down and I’m downloading this book while I’m having my coffee, and I’m like, my friend sent me a book about cleaning out when you’re dead! And he’s like, we are not doing that today.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Look, you know me so well! Although we did clean out our closets this week. Change of, change of seasons makes me, like, attentive to clutter for some reason, and he and I were like, all right, we’ve got to clean out our closets, and I’ve said, I’ve had, I have two classes of, of clothing? I have I am at a conference or another professional event or someone in my house is sticky, and those are two very separate groups of clothing. And I, and I weed them at different times, so it was time for me to go through all the conference clothing. Some of my stuff had, like, tears or had a moth hole; I needed to get rid of it. Well, Adam’s going through his stuff; he had a shirt from the Donald J. Trump collection, and we’re still not sure how big a fire we need to set for this.

Amanda: [Laughs] When I moved I did, like, the cleanout then, and our city did this really cool thing where they dropped off these pink, they were like pink garbage bags. They, like, put them in your mailbox free of charge, they just showed up one day, and they’re like, if you’re getting rid of clothes, all you have to do is fill up this pink bag, put it out with your trash on trash day, we’ll come and pick it up, and it’ll be, like, donated, and we’ll drop you off another one! That’s all you have to do.

Sarah: That’s awesome!

Amanda: And I, like, got rid of probably like two and a half bags of clothes –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: – when I moved.

Sarah: When they make it easy, it’s just the best.

Amanda: Yeah. Especially ‘cause I don’t have a car, so it’s like, I don’t want to, you know, lug stuff to Goodwill or have Eric lug stuff to Goodwill, so yeah, it was great. I loved it. Also, I found that game you were talking about, the dragon game.

Sarah: What –

Amanda: Little –

Sarah: Dragon and, dragon cooking?

Amanda: – Little Dragon’s Café.

Sarah: Little Dragon’s Café.

Amanda: You raise dragons, and you manage a café. It’s on the PS4 and Nintendo Switch. That’s what we were talking about.

Sarah: [Gasps] Ah, this is, this is, if you’re ever thinking maybe in the future you would like to have children, here’s a pro, a little checkmark, a little tick in the favorable column – there’s many unfavorable things, not the least of which is what happens to you physically – but in the pro column, I will say that when your children have videogame systems and they go to school, you can use those videogame systems as much as you want –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – or you can just buy yourself one, but it’s a little bit more fun to be like, Mommy wants your Switch; hand it over.

So let’s move on to the response email that we have. Now, both of these message came in after you and I did the podcast about your moving and continuing with a series, but one of them actually connects very well to our more recent episode about OTPs, and – [laughs] – as you said, trash OTPs.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So let’s do the first one. This is from Kelsey C.:

I just listened to your latest episode. It felt so good to hear that there is someone like me out there when it comes to books. Amanda and her roommate were so relatable.

I finally got a library when my husband and I bought our house. I have all my shelves organized by genre. I have an entire shelf dedicated to J. K. Rowling. But I am a huge fan of Maggie Stiefvater. I LOVE her book Shiver.

To answer your question about a series, things that make me stop are the story gets dull, an event I don’t like happens, or takes too long to come about. If there is a goal, then I want it solved or for the characters to come together. Not to be 6 books in and still no conclusion or more events happen to keep them apart, pretty much dragging it out.

Thank you. Knowing others are out there feeling the same as me when it comes to books feels great. I just love books so much.

Oh, Kelsey, I just love books so much too!

[Laughter]

Sarah: You’re not alone. I mean, first of all, Kelsey, it’s the internet; you’re never alone. Whatever thing you’re into, and it could be the most niche, weird thing in the entire known world, someone on the internet likes it too. Are those the things that make you stop reading a series, Amanda? Or are you still reading that series?

Amanda: Yes. [Laughs] Yes, I am.

Sarah: You’re still reading it! Oh my God! So none of those things have happened enough that you’re like, all right, fuck it?

Amanda: Well, I feel like the, the League series, there’s not really, like, an overarching, like, Big Bad that they’re working towards? I, I feel like each book is kind of like a little capsule.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: But, like, with the Immortals After Dark series, the books and the characters are all very much connected, and they are working towards something. Within the first book you find out – I think it’s the first book – you find out that there’s something called the Ascension coming up, and it’s like a checks and balances for supernatural creatures. There’s, like, a big war that’s supposed to happen –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: – and it kind of like culls the population so there’s not too much good or too much bad. So we’re still working up to it, but I feel like we take steps in each book to get closer and closer to that, or things happen that are supposed to affect the upcoming outcome. I was worried when Cole announced that some of her books, instead of, like, starting to wrap up the series by giving the remaining huge characters their books, she was going to start focusing on giving some, like, villains their own romances, and I was like, ooh, I don’t know if this is just like a ploy to drag the series out some more. I was very worried, but I think we’ve had two books so far in, in that, like, I wouldn’t even call it a spinoff, but, like, in that direction, and I’ve been happy with those. If, If it had been different, I, I might have had to break up with the series, which would be sad, ‘cause I was, like, fourteen books in. I would agree that if it, something is getting dragged out and there, not necessarily if there’s no conclusion, but if there’s no forward progress –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – however small it may be, then I would probably tap out.

Sarah: But this one still has you going.

Amanda: Yeah, it does! It does.

[Laughter]

Amanda: I don’t know if that’s good or bad. [Laughs]

Sarah: Has anything happened in this, in the process of reading it where you’re like, okay, I’m glad I’m still reading; I’m glad I’m still here. I’m still in this. Or are you kind of like, all right, I refuse to give up?

Amanda: Are we talking about the League series or the Immortals After Dark series?

Sarah: Oh, the League series.

Amanda: [Laughs] I don’t know! This series gives me such a crisis, ‘cause it’s like every so often I have to evaluate, like, am I having a good time? Am I enjoying this?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: And it’s such a weird gray area. It’s like, I don’t really know! I still want to read it. Like, I, they’re compulsively readable, but I don’t know if what I’m getting is enjoyment. I don’t – [laughs] – like, I can’t identify –

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Amanda: – this emotion. Curiosity, maybe? And each book keeps getting, like, bigger and bigger.

Sarah: Yeah?

Amanda: I picked up the next one, and it’s, like, the size of a Christmas ham. Like, it’s huge.

Sarah: What? [Laughs]

Amanda: Anyway, I’m still doing it. I don’t know why.

Sarah: Well, you know, if, if –

Amanda: What if I’m cursed? Like, what, what if this is a curse?

[Laughter]

Sarah: What if you’re cursed? What, like somebody out there in the world who has some sort of power was like, I’m going to curse Amanda. I’m going to curse her to not be able to stop reading this series.

Amanda: Yeah. Like, what, what if some weird, like, you know, interstate witch, like a witch who lives under the overpass –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – cursed me for something I did?

Sarah: So maybe there are witches out there who curse you to be unable to stop reading a series that you are not particularly enjoying. It’s like a terrible version of Sisyphus pulling a, pushing a boulder up a hill.

Amanda: Yes. That is exactly what this is. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh my gosh. All right, so you ready for this other email?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: ‘Cause I know you have some thoughts.

Amanda: [Laughs] Yes!

Sarah: Okay, so this is a longer email, but I think it asks a lot of questions that a lot of fans have when they’re aware that they are deep diving into a ship that is potentially toxic or angsty or troublesome in real life. So this is from Chelsea:

I was listening to your recent episode with Sarah and Amanda about the latter’s new apartment and book series, and I latched onto a comment Amanda made about having Reylo fan art in her new place. First of all, please excuse my excessive fangirling as I SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE forever about them and possibly maybe contemplate breaking into her place when she is out of the house to steal the fan art because *grabby hands*.

Sarah: So I hope you’ve improved your security. Linus is on that, right?

Amanda: We can link to the fan art too.

Sarah: Yeah, of course.

But of –

Amanda: And Linus isn’t going to do shit, so.

Sarah: [Laughs] Unless you break in with a laser pointer, Linus is not going to worry you.

But of course, [Chelsea says] while I also freak out, I always feel that tug in my gut that comes with thinking of one of my favorite ships ever, because while I adore the Reylo dynamic and think Daisy and Adam act the ever loving hell out of that DELICIOUS angstylove, it also makes me feel like a bad person – or at least a bad feminist – for liking this ship. This is far from the first ship I have had such conflicted feelings about, but because Star Wars is…Star Wars, this is the ship most in the fandom spotlight, and EVERYONE has something to say about it. I’m actually incredibly secretive about my love for Reylo because I feel like it will instantly make the VERY vocal people who dislike it come after me and tell me all the ways I am a terrible, problematic person for loving such a horrible ship, and because this ship is so problematic and horrible I ought to revoke my feminist card immediately. No one ever has done any of this, but being on the internet means you will see ALL OF THE THINGS (as I’m sure you know), and as soon as I type “Reylo” into the search engine, I am bombarded with just as much lovely fan art and wonderful GIF sets as I am with messages saying something to the effect of, “If you love Reylo, just a reminder you’re a horrible person who supports abusive relationships and Neo Nazis and white supremacy and pathetic fragile masculinity, and also you have zero right to call yourself a ‘feminist’ or a ‘social justice warrior.’ You have no excuses, and you are literally a garbage human =] (passive aggressive smile GIF goes here).” So I never talk about this ship to anyone.

God, I can’t imagine why.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah:

Amanda’s comment got me wondering, especially since you ladies mentioned you were doing an OTP episode. My question is, how do you reconcile things you KNOW are, to use the blanket term, problematic, when there are parts of you that still love them? How do you pick and choose how much of one thing you can love, or if it’s “okay” to like those things, knowing that other people point out ways those things can be harmful and damaging to the wellbeing of others? Is it enough just to say, “I know it’s problematic and I fully acknowledge it,” and still be able to enjoy a thing without needing to feel guilt, or does that make you an exceptionally privileged jerk-off?

I feel like if I admit to liking certain things (such as Reylo), I will immediately get people jumping at me to revoke my feminism right away. This is also compounded by the fact that I identify as queer, and I feel (maybe unreasonably) that if I *do* identify as not heterosexual, I ought to not care about hetero ships, just queer ones. Like, I ought to focus all my energy on shipping Finn and Poe, or only ship Rey with Rose, or do a Finn/Rey/Poe threesome deal, and while I have enjoyed fanfic and fan art of all those pairings, it’s Reylo that has my heart.

I would just love to just say “the heart wants what the heart wants,” but it’s never that simple, and every time I dive into those murky waters of navigating “problematic & privilege” I end up in shades of grey (made even more confusing by Tumblr’s tendency to either black or white an issue).

So, is there a way to reconcile what you love versus what you feel you shouldn’t? What you love and what others say is harmful? What you love and what seems contradictory to everything you should love?

Sincerely,

Chelsea

Oh, Chelsea, you have written to the right human.

Amanda: [Laughs] Come sit by me, Chelsea.

Sarah: [Laughs] I, I hope you have snacks. This is going to be a long conversation.

Amanda: Yes to all of this. When the whole Reylo ship first started gaining traction after The Last Jedi, I saw on Twitter a lot of people poo-pooing the Reylo ship and how it was toxic and how anyone could like it, and as someone who likes that ship, it’s hard to see people that you communicate with online or are fans of online kind of shitting on something that you like. And I can under- –

Sarah: That never feels good.

Amanda: No, I can understand why it would make you hesitant to mention what you like, because I went through that too.

Sarah: I think that’s something romance readers are pretty familiar with too.

Amanda: Yeah, it is, but sometimes we also experience that within the romance community too. Like, how dare someone could like this trope or this hero or this pairing or this dynamic? Where, you know, I’ve told Sarah time and time again that my life motto is “Let people enjoy things.” If it’s not bothering you and not really causing any sort of harm or emotional turmoil or abuse, let people enjoy things! You don’t have to like it, but if they’re getting some kind of happiness out of it – and we can all use something that brings us some happiness right about now – just let ‘em have it. Where I think this, where I can, like, reconcile for me is that I – sometimes fandom can be a very toxic community, and there are certain ships where it’s like, if you don’t like this, there’s something wrong with you, or if you do like this, there’s something wrong with you. And I think why I can get on board with fandoms like this or ships like this is that it’s fiction. These two characters were created for the purpose of our entertainment. There are so many fics out there that don’t really make sense, for example, my lovely Twitter friend Kay –

Sarah: I love this so much!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I have been laughing about the title since you told me! It has been, like, ten days!

Amanda: I don’t believe she is a Reylo shipper, but she knows that I am, and so she heard the podcast last week, and because she is a lovely, supportive internet friend, pointed me in the direction of a Reylo fanfic set in the universe of The Great British Bake Off, and the title is called Everything to Prove.

Sarah: It’s just such a good title!

Amanda: [Laughs] Now, like, obviously, Kylo Ren and Rey would never be on a British baking show, but the –

Sarah: Who’s to say they won’t? Star Wars is a weird place, man.

Amanda: But fanfic gives writers the ability to kind of just go fucking bonkers, and I feel like that’s what makes me able to reconcile is that it’s just fiction. We can do whatever we want. We can take the Reylo ship and kind of give a redemption arc, just like romance does. Like, romance will have a shitty hero who does shitty things for several books, and then people are so excited when he finally gets his own romance later on in the series –

Sarah: And he’s redeemed.

Amanda: – and is redeemed!

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And I don’t understand why that’s so unbelievable to some people, and I think personally, you have to draw your own moral lines. Like, I will never read a Nazi romance, but there are people who write them, and I think what, for me the line is, is that that setting and those actions and those people were real. They did real things, and it’s catalogued through history, and that is something that I cannot get behind, because it’s not fiction. It’s bad.

Sarah: It’s also – I mean, obviously my feelings about this are more, and, and very intensely personal, but it’s erasure.

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: Let’s not pretend that the Hol-, let’s pretend that the Holocaust wasn’t all that bad. Oh, there’s a whole cascade of things going wrong when you pretend that’s the case. And I think one important distinction to make specifically with Reylo is, not only are they fictional characters, but I don’t think anyone in that universe surrounding them, the, the context of their relationship, such as it is, and the framing of their relationship, none of that is, oh, isn’t this cute? This is so healthy.

Amanda: Yeah. No, I don’t –

Sarah: Like, Rey is like, I’m really into you. Her, Daisy Ridley’s, or at least my interpretation of Daisy Ridley’s expressions was, I’m really into you, and I really dislike it, because I can see everything that you are, and it is not good.

Amanda: Yes, exactly, and I don’t think – I mean, I enjoy the ship, but I realize that it’s not a healthy relationship.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: So I think acknowledging that is great! You can like something but realize that there are bad parts to it. I don’t want to use the word “problematic,” but there are, like, unsavory parts too. Like, we can support, I don’t know, forms of media that have their own issues and recognize those issues –

Sarah: Oh, you mean like romance?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Oh, the devil you say. [Laughs]

Amanda: So I still support, I support romance, and I love romance, but I also realize there is a lot of stuff wrong with romance that needs to be worked on, that needs to be improved. And honestly, like, it’s just shipping; it’s just fanfic. I feel like people who get so wound up in policing what people should and should not ship or read or write – I don’t know; that’s, like, a shitty way to live your life. Why don’t you just, like, surround yourself with the things that you do enjoy? So I don’t know. I think it, it’s a personal journey –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – that you’ll have to contend with.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: If you want to keep hiding it ‘cause you, you feel like you’ll get judged, that is completely up to you, if you want to not give yourself that sort of stress. But as Sarah was saying before, romance is filled with so many niche communities that you are bound to find your group or find a community within the community of people who like what you like!

Sarah: Yep. I also want to answer a couple of things that Chelsea said, if you’re done. If I’m interrupting, I’ll shut up.

Amanda: Yes, no, go ahead.

Sarah: First, Emily Nagoski said in our two interviews with her, don’t should all over yourself.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You don’t have to, I don’t think you do, I do not think you need to castigate yourself for not being a good feminist or that you should only ship queer things, that you should only like unproblematic things. Like, there’s a lot of tricky, weird things that go on with humans, ‘cause we’re complex and contradictory, and don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re already asking yourself if you’re a bad person. That’s, like, the first five steps of not being a bad person. ‘Cause if you were a bad person, you wouldn’t worry about it.

Moreover, I don’t think you’re harming anyone. I don’t think you’re actually out there being like, everyone should love this relationship because I love it, and if you don’t love it the right way or you don’t love it like I do or you don’t like it at all, you’re wrong. Like, that’s, that’s not going to work. But you’re not hurting anyone, and you already recognize the things about it that are somewhat troublesome and that perhaps, as Amanda said when we were talking about this, you might not want to replicate in your real life, because that would be incredibly exhausting.

However, I always think that there is value to be found in examining something that you like and why you like it, or examining how you feel with a little bit of separation and thinking, without judgment, okay, why am I into this? Why is this the thing that turns my crank? What, that’s really interesting. Not with judgment or self-deprecation or, or any kind of self-criticism; just, okay, this is what turns my crank. Wonder why that is? What other things does it have in common with? Hmm. I bet I can find more. So first of all, that’s, like, the foundation of finding your reading catnip in just about every incarnation, and that’s a completely legitimate exercise!

I think everyone struggles with what to do when you find that you like something that you’re not entirely sure is a good thing for you, but I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with examining, okay, I like this. What are the specific parts of this that I like? Like, if it’s a Lego sculpture, what are the pieces that make this up, and what other pieces does it have in common with something else? Now, your brain not, might not really enjoy that; my brain finds that incredibly delicious. So maybe you’re not like me and that’s okay!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, and I understand not wanting to tell people that you like this ship, but you know, you’re not hurting anybody by in-, indulging a, in a fictional pairing between two characters when you already see some of the fundamental issues. Like, for example, I don’t think there’s anything that could ever redeem Kylo Ren. He’s a mass-murdering, father-killing, whiny little turd-bucket, and in fact – is it still there, Amanda? – when we did the OTP –

Amanda: No, no, it’s not.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So we have this spreadsheet where I list all of the books that need to go into our site database, and Amanda puts them in the database ‘cause she’s a fucking rock star, and – [laughs] – I think I put that, I don’t remember what movie it was, but I was like, Star Wars, the one where, where, where Adam Driver has a big man tantrum, and you wrote, rude!

Amanda: [Laughs] And then you’re like, what? It’s true!

Sarah: [Laughs] So yeah, if you like a pairing, if you like a pairing that, that other people find problematic, there’s nothing wrong with asking, okay, why is it that this does it for me? Is it the power dynamic? Is it the deeply, deeply, morally ambivalent character? Is it the – what is that, what is the thing you described, the earthly link?

Amanda: A morality chain. [Laughs]

Sarah: Morality chain. I was close!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Look, my brain is fine! Don’t judge it. The morality chain, where this one character is keeping this person from going completely evil. That, you know, you’re asking, at what point is someone unredeemable, and, and that you can’t believe in them anymore. These are completely normal questions, so don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s okay to like things. However, if you were involved in a relationship like this and were, were struggling with it, I would have a lot more different answers, because I do think you know the difference –

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: – between fiction and reality.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Right? So are you going to be sharing some of your links to your favorite Reylo fics in the show notes so that, so that Chelsea can find more of what she likes?

Amanda: I’m slowly diving into Reylo fanfic. So I haven’t found any that I completely love, but I did link the one that my friend sent me, and then if you’re a Dramione fan, so Draco and Hermione, I started getting into this fanfic that was recommended at a local romance readers’ meetup, and this is on fanfiction.net, which isn’t as great as AO3, but it’s called The Politician’s Wife? It’s fourteen chapters long –

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: – and I’m slowly making my way through it, and it’s completed, so no, no, like, weird cliffhangers and wondering if they’ll ever update again, like I did with my fanfics that I used to write. [Laughs] So yeah, yeah.

Sarah: You’ll share those. Excellent.

All right, so we have one more. This is from Adrienne:

Hi Sarah & your fellow SB podcasters,

First, many (belated!) thanks to Sarah for co-writing Beyond Heaving Bosoms – it’s how I discovered both the appeal of romance novels (which was hitherto lost on me) and the snark-tastic SB site itself. And even more thanks to you guys for the book rec podcast episodes. So of course, here comes a request!

I’m looking for good stuff specifically featuring bisexual characters. My guidelines are: at least two actively-bi main characters; at least MMF; erotic romance. MMFF is my ideal (hey, I’m greedy!), and bonus points if also historical (but contemporaries – and pretty much all other sub-genres for that matter – are OK too). Preferably no billionaires/kink (or kinky billionaires) – not that I don’t like kink just fine (billionaires are another matter…); it’s the all too common Fifty Shades version that I can’t stand. Plus, for some reason, romances with bi characters seem to feel that the inclusion of kink is almost obligatory. So I’m kind of over it at this point unless the kink is truly integral and depicted in a complex, character-based, well-thought-out way.

Here’s what I’ve managed to come up with along these lines so far:

• Megan Hart: Tempted
• Ann Herendeen: Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander; Pride/Prejudice
• Emma Holly: The Billionaire Bad Boys Club; Beck & Call; Lord & Master
• Jude Lucens: Radical Proposals series
• Megan Mulry: Regency Reimagined series
• Tiffany Reisz: Original Sinners series
• Kris Ripper: Fail Seven Times

Also, can’t resist mentioning this one (all right, it’s just MM and not exactly a “romance” per se, but: both leads are bi; it’s a historical [non-cliché period, too – English Civil War], and it’s really, really good!):

• Maria McCann: As Meat Loves Salt

Please tell me that I haven’t exhausted the world’s supply of above-average bi romances already!

Thanks for sharing your smarts (& bitchiness!) with me.

From Adrienne. Now, I have one recommendation, and that is “Butterfly Kisses” –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: No, Butterfly Tattoo. “Butterfly Kisses” is a terrible song that I hear on the radio, and it makes me, like, makes my whole, all of my skin want to crawl off. Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight has a bi hero. And before you get to recommendations, Amanda, I also want to make sure that I mention that you have Rec It Wednesdays on Instagram every week, so if you want more recommendations you can find @SmartBitches on Instagram, and Amanda will blow you away with the power of her ability to recommend books based on description. How’s it going with that?

Amanda: Pretty good! My fingers pretty much turn numb with answering all the requests.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So the way it works is every Wednesday, I don’t have, like, a dedicated time, but every Wednesday on our Instagram Stories I will put a question. It’s like a little, I don’t know, like a little thing that you can answer, which is what a question is. Okay.

[Laughter]

Amanda: But it’s like give me a trope and a genre and I will give you a recommendation, and you click the little box in our Instagram Stories, and you are able to submit it, and it sends it to me, and then I will answer it, and it shows up on our Instagram Stories. And then a lot of people screenshot the, the answers because they’re worried they’ll never see them again, but I’ve also been saving the answers to our highlights reel, which is in our profile by genre. So you can go –

Sarah: Which is incredible, by the way.

Amanda: – which you can go back and revisit. There are a lot. So it’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of like a, a treasure hunt to find someone’s, like, book. Some are pretty generic – like, some people want a slow burn historical – and others are so very oddly specific, and I’m like, I don’t think a book exists like this ever!

[Laughter]

Amanda: So, but, and sometimes when we get stumped on one, we will, you know, I’ll answer it and be like, hey, I’m stumped. If any of our followers know something that fits, please DM me and I will re-answer the question. So then, you know, sometimes we get some really great responses from readers about books that I didn’t know existed that fit someone’s very specific rec request. So sometimes I do them over the course of several days, but I will usually when I’m done answering all requests, so if you put in one and it’s not answered the first or second batch, you’ll know when I’m done.

Sarah: ‘Cause you get a lot! Like, you get dozens.

Amanda: Oh yeah. Yeah, I think the first time I did it we had, like, eighty requests, eighty-something?

Sarah: Damn.

Amanda: But it’s a lot of fun, and I enjoy doing it.

Sarah: It’s awesome. Well done.

Amanda: Thank you!

Sarah: All right, so do you have a recommendation for Adrienne?

Amanda: I have a, I have a few contenders. We did a podcast episode previously about bisexual romance characters, and I think –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – we have some recommendations in that one. I struggled with trying to find books that had more than one bi character, ‘cause it’s usually just one, and that didn’t have kink. A lot of them have, like, BDSM in it. But for starters – and I can never remember, and I’m sure Sarah has corrected me several times on previous podcasts – Kit Rock-uh? Roe-kuh?

Sarah: Roe-kuh, I think it’s Roe-kuh.

Amanda: Rocha. They have a series, their, their Beyond series? Essentially, it’s billed as a bisexual love army – [laughs] – so there are lots of bisexual people. There’s lots of sex; it’s definitely on the erotic side. Lots of stuff going on like voyeurism, exhibitionism, but I feel like that’s a, a good series, and it’s several books long.

The Brown Siblings [Brown Family] series by Lauren Dane has a triad in the first book. I can’t remember – it’s been so long since I’ve read it, but I can’t remember how intimate, like, the two male characters get? If there’s any touching involved, or if it’s mainly, like, it’s fine as long as the balls don’t touch scenario, which is stupid?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So – [laughs] – so I can’t remember how, how sexed-up everyone gets with each other.

And then one series that we featured on sale a few times is the Lords of Time series by Jenn LeBlanc. It is historical, though it does have some time travel to it, and I believe a couple of the later books in the series – not the first book – have a bit more bisexuality and, like, diversity when it comes to, to partners. So those are my recommendations.

Sarah: Those are good recommendations!

Amanda: Thank you!

Sarah: I also think there are more books coming out in the future that have just sort of matter-of-factly bi characters, which is very cool, because you know, it’s also, I think, exhausting when the major character aspect of the character is, and they’re bi! Like, that’s just, that’s not a conflict; it’s just a state of being.

Amanda: I believe The Princess Trap has a bi hero, if I remember correctly.

Sarah: I think you are right, yes. Talia Hibbert has definitely written –

Amanda: And then Alisha Rai has some bisexual characters. And then one of my favorites with a bisexual heroine is Burn Down the Night by Molly O’Keefe. The heroine kidnaps the hero, who is the head of a motorcycle club, because she needs his help rescuing her sister from a cult. So – [laughs]

Sarah: As you do.

Amanda: It’s a very intense read, but the heroine is, like, prickly and angry, and she’s great. But I believe the heroine is the only bisexual character in that one.

Sarah: That’s very cool.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: All right. Anything else you want to mention? Any books you want to mention or recommend before we go?

Amanda: I haven’t been, like, reading any books. I’ve just been playing Assassin’s Creed a lot. [Laughs]

Sarah: Is there a romance in there?

Amanda: So there are people that you can “romance,” but it’s just mainly, like, flirting and, like, kissing and maybe, like, a sex scene. It’s not like an in-depth courtship like Dragon Age is, and it, like, affects what you do –

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: – and, you know, like, your character story or whatever.

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: And it’s also very, I don’t know, it’s, you can romance whoever. It’s not like specific gender, like, oh, you can only romance so-and-so if you play as the guy character.

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: But it is stilted. There’s a lot more women you can romance compared to men. I think there’s about three times more women you can romance than men. So it’s pretty, like, superficial stuff. It’s not as in-depth, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but it makes up for, you know, all the ball-stabbing that I’ve been doing, so.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Basically, we’re going to have to change your byline to Amanda, Stabber of Taints.

Amanda: [Laughs] Amanda Ball-Stabber Diehl I think has a good ring.

Sarah: You know how everyone changes their name on Twitter for Halloween? Maybe that should just be yours. Amanda Ball-Stabber Diehl.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. If you would like to get in touch of us, if you want to send us an email, you can do that at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can leave a voicemail at 1-201-371-3272. Don’t forget to tell us your name – whatever name you want – and we can add you to a future episode.

This week’s episode and transcript are brought to you by Promise Me You by Marina Adair, available now from Montlake Romance. Mackenzie Hart has made a career out of writing about eternal love, so when she finds her perfect match in Hunter Kane, she decides to put it all on the line. Irresistibly charming, drenched in alpha-male swagger, Hunter isn’t just the catch of the town – he’s Mackenzie’s best friend. Only someone else beats her to the altar. And after a fresh start and three years to recover, the last thing Mackenzie expects is for her old life to come knocking. Recently divorced, musician Hunter Kane wants to reconnect with the woman he left behind. Admitting his biggest mistake comes first. What comes next is up to Mackenzie. He hopes she’ll give him a second chance. He may have been the one to break her heart, but he knows he can also be the one to mend it. After a tenuous friendship turns into something more, Hunter’s life on the road beckons once again. Will love be enough to keep them together, or will their wildly different worlds be too much for them to overcome? Readers who fell in love with Jackson and Ally in the recent remake of A Star Is Born will swoon over this emotionally satisfying second-chance romance. Promise Me You by Marina Adair is available now from Montlake Romance.

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge of any amount, thank you very, very much. You are helping me keep the show going, you help me make sure every episode receives a transcript, and you’re keeping each episode accessible to everyone, which is important to me and to many readers and listeners as well. Thank you! If you would like to join the Patreon community, it would be complete great if you did! You can have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and you’ll be part of the group who helps me develop questions and interview suggestions and makes guest suggestions for upcoming episodes. I am deeply, deeply thankful to everyone who has supported the show. Thank you so much.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is the Peatbog Faeries. This is their album Blackhouse, and this track is called “The Real North.” You can find the album and the Peatbog Faeries at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your funky music, and you can find the Peatbog Faeries on their website at peatbogfaeries.com.

Coming up on Smart Bitches – well, first of all, Orville has decided it is time to shift position, possibly headbutt the sound box –

[Scrape]

Yes. Orville, what, what is coming up for you today? Napping, followed by eating of the, yeah, eating the foam on the sound box. Yeah, that sounds good. Excellent! Well thank you for your help, buddy. The sun is on the other half of the desk. What – no, we’re going to headbutt – okay, that’s great.

Well, Orville would like you to know what’s coming up on the site this week, because he’s about to plan his next nap. First of all, Outlander is back. Yay! So we have recaps! Outlander is airing on Saturday nights, which is perfect for a warm and cozy night in, so we will be posting the recap of the prior week’s episode on Saturdays when available. We also have Kickass Women in History coming up this week, a guest review of a miniseries on Netflix that sounds like absolutely incredible fun, and we have some reviews of books we recommend, a new Gift Guide, and a new edition of Cover Snark. As always, we will also have Help a Bitch Out, Books on Sale, and more. We hope you will come hang out with us; it is so lovely when you do.

Now, as always, it is time for me to end with a terrible joke. I’m attempting to put Orville’s butt back on the – there we go. Now it’s on the desk and not hanging off onto the sound box. Whoo! I tell you, being a podcaster with a cat is, like, the biggest challenge. You’d think it would be, like, the sound box or the microphone or the editing or the mixing! No, it’s actually the cat; the cat is the most challenging part of having a podcast. So Orville and I are here with a new terrible joke. Are you ready? I hope you are ready. Here we go:

What is the difference between a dirty bus depot and a lobster with breast implants?

This is so bad; I love it.

What is the difference between a dirty bus depot and a lobster with breast implants?

One is a crusty bus station, and the other is a busty crustacean.

[Laughs] I told this to, like, three different people, and they just stared at me! I imagine you’re just sort of staring off into space with this look of great despair, like, oh, that was bad. It was really bad, right? Yeah, I was pretty excited about that one. That was posted by ihasanali on Reddit’s Dad Jokes forum. If you really want to just torture yourself, go read all the terrible dad jokes there. They’re my favorites.

On behalf of Orville, who is always helpful, and Amanda, we wish you the very best of reading. We hope you have a great weekend, and we will see you back here next week. Thank you, as always, for listening.

[quiet music]