House of R - Valentine's Day Quickie: F*ck/Marry/Moon Door, Top Alterna-Ships, the Romantasy Boom, and More!

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Love is in the air! Also, a whole bunch of sex. Mal and Jo are here to have some Valentine's Day fun with another game of "F*ck/Marry/Moon Door" (05:24), as well as looking at classic alternative ships throughout stories, and even discussing the Romantasy craze going around books today. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may find this hard to believe, but 60 songs that explain the 90s. America's favorite poorly named music podcast is back. With 30 more songs than 120 songs total. I'm your host, Rob Harvilla, here to bring you more shrewd musical analysis, poignant nostalgic reveries, crude personal anecdotes, and rad special guests, all with even less restraint than usual. Join us once more on 60 Saws that Explain the 90s every Wednesday on Spotify. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

predicts. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandual prediction markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expire seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fanduil.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more, restrict. apply services not available in all areas and welcome house of our a ringer verse podcast on the ringer podcast network i'm mallory rubin she's new york times bestselling author joanna robinson and it is our absolute pleasure to invite you back into the house of our for a valentine's day quickie joe a little afternoon delight here on this Wednesday.

Happy Valentine's Day bad babies. Quick one. Quick one. We're just going to have a little fun today. Happy Valentine's Day. Yeah, happy Valentine's Day. This is just like a Whitman sampler of ideas from us. Delicious.

Concerning sex love and friendship, I would say. Sex love and friendship. Indeed. Because I feel like most of our bonds are about that. I would say this one especially, like. Like if sometimes you listen with your kids around and you're like, this is okay. I would say maybe not today. Not today.

Tune for Avatar on Friday. It'll be much more different. Yes. This V-Day Quiki contains adult content for sure. Joe, a couple quick programming reminders before we dive in. Over on the ringerverse, the Midnight Boys. A peep-boo! They'll be with everyone tomorrow, Thursday.

Because what could happen in the world that warranted a Midnight Boys? scheduling shift. It would have to be the cinematic event of the year. I can't wait. I can't wait to hear the guys chat about this film and hear the guys chat about spending their Valentine's Day watching this movie, which is what they will be doing this evening. Are they all going together tonight? Steve, are you going together? We pretty much are, yeah.

That's adorable. I love it. Over here on the House of our podcast feed, you're going to get three pods this week. It's a threesome. It's a threesome. The primer pod for the impending live action Netflix adaptation of Avatar the Last Airbender, the primer pod is all going to be about something that came before. We are going to revisit and celebrate our favorite moments on a character by character basis

from the original animated. series. We've been re-watching. We cannot wait to talk about this beautiful gem of a show together. That's going to be a really fun one. Joanna, how can everybody follow along? I'm so glad you asked me this question. Thank you very much. First of all, follow us on socials. I know for a fact that Jomey is cooking up a Valentine's Day treat for you all on social media platform of your choice, so you might want to go check it out. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Jomi Jomi's doing his magic. Also, why don't you just like follow us? the pod. Follow the ringerverse, follow House of Ar, follow Malover and the rewatchables

occasionally, may on trial by content every week, whatever it is you choose. Follow along. Also, you can email us. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com and plenty of you emailed your Valentine's Day suggestions, and we took a few of them. Yes. So we read your V-Day suggestion emails. We picked a few for this quickie. Not all of them, because this is, as we said, a quickie. Move on. Last program of reminder is always our friendly neighborhood. Spoiler warning. What's the spoiler warning for today, Joe?

People fucking. And people being in love. And that. You're an intanguals? Yeah. Linging to be free. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to talk about some fictional characters who hook up or maybe who didn't. We would have loved if they had. So, you know, inherently we will be talking about some things that happen in stories. It's, it's, I don't really know how to issue a spoiler warning for that without revealing all the things that we're going to be talking about in advance. So, tread carefully, but also enjoy it. It's a pod about love. Yeah. And sex.

All right, Joe. We were going to do a trio of topics. You know, we had our beautiful tropes course on golden trios earlier this week. We thought, why not keep the threesome trend going? But we couldn't, we couldn't cap ourselves at three. We wound up with four prompts. I guess it's an orgy. Let's dive in to the V-Day Quicky.

Our first topic today, we are reviving a instantly a favorite of ours from the live show. We had a beautiful experience with our pals, Ringaverse Live, out in Los Angeles this past October, and the House of our segment included a few minutes of something that you, in a fit of genius, named Fuck Mary Moondor.

Our particular Thronean spin on the classic Fuck Mary Kill. And we had a blast. We're going to run it back today for a few minutes here. We are each going to present three Fuck Mary Moondor prompts to the other person. I do not know what you will be sending my way. And you do not know what I will be sending your way. Real time surprise. What I love about this, not only the delight, of course, but the lack of a heads-up awareness,

it does introduce the possibility that despite literally everything in the history of the universe being on offer, we could potentially come up with the same prompt. I don't think so, and I'll tell you, I'll explain why when I do mine. But the thing I was worried about is I was like, my Swiss cheese brain, I was like, what I don't want to repeat any of the ones we did the live show because I was like that's I had to go back and listen to make sure I didn't do any repeats. So yeah, here we are. I probably should have checked to make sure. I can't remember anything, as you know. Because I was like, this will be easy. I'll just think of things I know how I like. And I was like, that's what you did last time. So don't do that again. Okay. So here was my, my protection simultaneously, I hope I think, I don't think any of these repeats. My protection against repeating prompts from the live show. But also. my protection against feeling like we're out of fodder in the future

because I want us to keep being able to run back the bit. Of course. We love a bit. We love a tradition. I'm going with timely pegs. Recent pegs.

Just like Deadpool. Crazy. In the record-breaking trailer. I had my own system. Okay. Do you want to hear my system? Yeah. I searched our text messages for the word hot because that's the word that Mallory uses to describe people.

Like, if she wants to admire someone, she calls them hot. That's the word she uses. By the way, this took a long time because we talk about Hot D a lot and Mallory spells it H-O-T space D. So that came up a lot. George, in honor of George, this creative genius. And we talk about hotels a lot. A lot of hotel discussion between the two of us in our various trap.

So I had to get past all of those. But I came up and I'll have supporting quotes for my... Oh, my God. I'm not exposing anything bad. Everything is something you would clearly say on doors. Oh, my Lord. Okay, I'm excited and terrified. I can't wait to hear.

Do you want to go first? Do you want me to throw one your way first? I'll go first. Okay. And I'll start with our most. recent peg phrasing um yeah which is this is the text i got from you uh quote hot hades i have no notes oh are you think well do you think we're going to have the same one your face i think we have the same one okay but i have a twist okay so we're doing fuck by a moon door yeah what of course why not

do the big three the gods and percy jackson haides you're already Fave, Poseidon, and Zeus. But I was wondering, like, because the amazing, talented, Lance Reddick is no longer with us, I was like, is that indelicate? So if you would prefer to do it with Sean Bean, who played Zeus in the movies, you could do that instead. This is unbelievable. We have the almost exact same first one.

Mine was Percy TV show edition, God's Division, Big Three, then a question about whether it felt insensitive and wrong. to include Lance Reddick and also an explanation for anyone wondering of why, obviously, he's not a member of the big three, but why we did not include

Mr. D on the Percy TV God's front. And it's because he's our friend and that would be weird. But also, got a tits and wine. I mean, an unfair advantage. Like, nobody can compete.

So my three for you were going to be Poseidon, Hades, and abandoning the big three grouping. I was going to get Aries. Aries in the mix as another big presence in this season. I know Aries is very important to you, even though you never specifically called him hot in a text message to me. So we, yeah, we'll swap Zeus for Aries. That's very smart.

Okay, let's do it. Okay, so we have these. We do, in fact, despite anything in the history of story being possible, we have managed to put together an identical first prompt. This is astonishing. This is incredible. I now feel like the second one might be the same, too. We'll see. Okay, Poseidon, Hades, Ares.

So we have a shared first prompt to each other. Okay. Fuck Mary Moon, Dora. This is hard, actually. That's what she said, yeah. Maybe. Always, Lance. If not today, then when, you know?

Oh, man, indeed. Okay, so my first instinct, my first instinct is to say I'll marry Poseidon. because I'm definitely not sending Poseidon through the moon door. Poseidon is for sure a fucker or Mary. It's just a question of which. Incredibly hot. It's fun to think about a scenario where you've been covering true detective, right?

So I'll say to I thought instantly iconic, without getting into the character examples in case it's a spoiler for anyone, instantly iconic sex scene from episode two and the don't you? Damn boy. And then Poseidon just saying this, he does not like to be restrained. Can't hold out any longer. So we've been calling, I mean, no major two detective spoilers, but the one half of that couple, we have been calling cop daddy Connolly because that's like just a nickname we came up with him.

But a lot of people on Twitter, I'm just not a nuncy. I'm not popping my peas enough. So a lot of people are hearing cop daddy Connolly and they're hearing something else. And I just want to assure you that it's cop with him. The P. Daddy Colleen. Oh my God. Incredible. That was a good impression that you did, though. And it's this boy, oh, man.

Poseidon, I'm going to marry Poseidon. Yeah. Live in his underwater palace. Sure. Help rule the seas. Yeah. The thing is, any god that you're marrying, you're sort of like opting into a life of infidelity, they're just going to be off-fathering demigods.

We're Polly. We've got to be Polly. So, yeah. I'm thinking open marriage. Okay. We're on the same page. Hades and Aries, it's hard for me to not want to fuck hot Hades. Not a sentence I thought I'd say out loud. And again, this is the TV show edition. I think the vibe here is, you know, if we were talking about the book and like, Hades, who's wearing a cloak made out of faces of the dead, I think I'd be less into it. No. But the Jay Dupluss version with his elegant floor lamp. Yeah. Some tasteful black leather furniture. Exactly. Yeah. Minimalist decor.

Yeah. Interesting technique on the eyebrows. What other techniques might be interesting? Only one way to find out. You know, Aries, the appeal potentially is that we know Aries heightens in a response, right? Heightens an emotional response. An emotional physical response. So like this is, there's a potential appealing application of that.

But do you want to fuck the God of the one? I don't know. It's like a hate fuck essentially. Is that what you want? Is that what you're looking for? Oh, man. I don't know if I want to fuck anyone who's going to be bringing up saving Private Ryan in the middle of a conversation, though, you know? Shakespeare and Love only.

It's only Shakespeare and Love. No, saving Private Ryan. I guess I'll marry Poseidon. I'll fuck Hades and I'll, I mean, we can't really kill a God, you know. But Aries can go through the moon door and then they can be mad at me and we can have a feud. Feels right. What about you? I'm tempted to do the same, but I think I'll swap Aries for Hades only because,

Hades gives me like slight sad boy vibes and I just don't know that I want anything to do with it, you know? I love a sad boy. Plus like we're surrounded by the dead. And I'm just like, I know you're not marrying him. You're not staying, but you're going to have to go down there to do it. And I'm just like, which is also what she said. But like I just think that like, oh my God, you're in a roll. What about just like during the visit to Olympus during the solstice?

Oh, well, anything goes to. I feel like it's a thruple situation. on the solstice. Anything goes, right? Yeah, I'll do marry Poseidon. Toby Severs is just marriage material, honestly. You know, sadly said Hades through the moon door back down. Back to the underworld.

Tough. Hate fuck areas, I suppose. I really think Hades would appreciate some attention and love. Oh, you'd be grateful. You'd think you'd be grateful. Grateful over. Hades is grateful over. You'd have to do it in the, in the,

springtime when Persephone is like back up top and you're like he's all lonely and missing her and touch starved okay great all right so that was my first one too which means it's back to you okay here's me once again using your own words against you I'm terrified quote hot professor my greatest weakness it's true that was in reference to man the doctor is played by peter Capaldi yeah uh so that's one boy I have a type Yeah. Number two, Professor Charles Xavier is played by James McGooy. Oh, boy.

Okay. Or you can pick Picard if you want. You can pick Patrick Stewart if you want. And number three, Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., which I know is like throwing... I mean... I understand. I know, but like you can't say... Any particular era?

I'm going to do... Or any era? All eras. I'm going to do Raiders. Let's do Raiders. Oh, I mean... Yeah. Twist my arm.

But like who are you killing, I guess is the question. Professor X. It's. Well. Without hesitation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But this is actually a pretty easy one for me.

Okay. I will see, it feels like the right answer is fucking indie and marrying 12. Yeah. But my. But my particular way of parsing fuck Mary kill slash fuck Mary Moondor has always been that despite my complex feelings about marriage in general as an institution. Yeah. I do think in this game, marriage is just, you know what? Maybe I don't.

I used to think when I was young that picking marriage was actually just a way to get more fucking in. Like fucking forever. Is it? Is it? Or is it like this is a sexless companionship sort of thing? Exactly. It's like I'm picking my roommate. Yeah.

I think I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, but like you pick fucking Henry Jones Jr. And it's just once and then you're done. Indies never back in your life, but also is that how it should be? Do you just want that one experience? I can't believe I'm about to do this, but I think I'm going to, I'm tort. This is an act of torture here because if I'm. marry indie. We can have sex all the time. Lots of elbow kisses and other sorts of kisses too.

Yeah. And in theory, we can go on all sorts of adventures together. Oh, yeah. International fucking. A life of quests and travel. What desert wouldn't we fucking, you know, where would the sand go? What treasure wouldn't he find? You know? Exactly. But is that the kind of life I want? If we're being honest, I like a quiet life. I like a cat. I like a cat. couch-bound life. I like a life defined by pajamas and reading about or watching other people's adventures. And I feel like that would be a source of distance and resentment between us. And in time, we would crumble.

So I think I've got to fuck indie and cherish the memory forever. Yeah. Right? It's the sexual encounter that every other is measured against for the rest of time. Yeah. And then I'm going to marry 12. and will travel and just constantly tell him how he is inferior to that guy. He fucked that one time.

Just remind him that he'll never measure up. I think that would work in that relationship. He would probably say fair, you know. Yeah, he needs to be kept on his toes. He needs to get to the point where eventually he can say that's some bird. So that's my landing spot, I think. Hopefully in the midst of something. That's some bird.

I hope so. Is that where you would have gone as well? That's not the game. You're not going to comment. That's not the game. Wow. Okay. Fine. But I will say I care a lot more about James McAvoy than you do, obviously.

So let's just like. I love James McAvoy and I love Charles Xavier. But indie is like, I mean, come on. No, I mean, I know. I know about indie. I know what I was, I knew what I was doing when I put in there. Don't worry. I actually know, I found myself so smitten.

I know. time I spent with Peter Capaldi's doctor. I just was like rapture. I was like this. I almost instead of Professor Charles Xavier, because he's not really your type, and I knew that. I almost put...

Little young. That's what I was going to say. A little dough-eyed for your taste. A little young. I almost put coach Eric Taylor in there, even though he's not a professor, but he is like... Oh, my God. Well, that would have been hard.

I don't know what I would have done in that scenario. I'll put him on the bench for next time. He's one of my all-time favorites, those sad eyes. I know. Those sad eyes. I just, boy. All right, here's the second one for you. Yeah.

Dune edition. Oh. My aracas. Okay. Yeah. We're spanning time here. But all inside of Dune. Stings.

Paid Ratha. Austin Butler's paid Ratha. and the Dune popcorn bucket. Fuck Mary Moondor. This is so good. Because there's no one on here. There's nothing like great on here for me, for me personally. Because I was like, you're not into metal diapers?

I was like, ooh, Austin Butler out the moon door is so easy for me. Before I heard the third option was the bucket. What about the way he, you saw the way he licked that knife in the trailer, right? I'm not like Amanda Dobbins and I agree on so many things. and Austin Butler is a great divide between us. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. And as you know, I wanted Barry Keowen for that role.

So I got to toss the bucket because, like, the bucket's not for us. It's not for women. It's for men, mostly. You can get experimental, I guess. But yeah. So the bucket's. going out the door, I guess. Okay.

Which is, I guess, the boring answer. I really should have picked it to fuck it, but oh, well. Actually, no. I can't believe you're not fucking the bucket. You're right. You're right. You're so right. You're so right.

It's Valentine's Day. Live in the moment. If not now, when I'm fucking the bucket. All right. So Austin Butler's going out. The moon door. And I will marry the metal bikini. Just an absolutely.

The metal man cany. That is. Incredible answer. I have no notes. Thanks. Other than the one I already issued about the knife. This is your last one. It's a cheat and it's a smuggle.

Oh, boy. Okay. You still only get three answers. Oh. Okay. But we are doing an assorted platter of remaining random men that you have called hot in text messages to me. Don't let all the material go. Who knows we'll want to run this back next?

Don't worry. There's plenty to go from. We've got Hal Brandt, aka Hot Sauron who fucks. Amazing. We've got Spencer Dutton, who I had to Google image search, because as you know, I know nothing about Yellowstone, but... Oh, my God. You called him unbearably hot in a text message. It's...

My heart is racing right now. Ellen Deal from Rings of Power, who you called Hot a few times, quite a fair few times. Harwin Strong from House of Dragon. This is a lot of people. Oh, man. I'll run them all back for you if you need a fresh shirt. Ethan from White Lotus. And your number one most referred to hot person, much to my disappointment, is fucking Kristen Cole from House of the Dragon.

He's gorgeous. I mean, he just is. So is it. Even with the dumb hat on. Hot D-edition is Harwin-Stra and Christian Cole versus the Rings of Power Boys. Powell Brennan Ellen Deal versus the modern era Spencer Dutton and Ethan from White Lotus. Oh my God. So, okay.

Let's just say you're going to fucking marry two of them and the rest of them are going out the window. So what's interesting, these are just some all-time greats right here. A couple of them, I would say, as you know, was just, I thought Ethan was. You and Bill and I really disagreed on this. I just was like in love with him. I thought he was magnetic. Many text messages from you about it because he would like listen to us talk about him. And then you'd be like, you guys are fools.

Yeah, he thought he was just absolutely mesmerizing. But Ethan from White Lotus and Spencer, who. So hot from 1923. Yeah. The Lowe showed spin off prequel. they're not genre picks, right? We're going outside of like the... True.

If you want to make it easier on myself, even though I love them dearly, I could maybe seek to disqualify them. Sure. I will allow it. To make it an easier exercise. We're down to four. Spencer would have to be the...

Spencer doesn't have to be the pick for fuck if he's in any scenario. It's not even an actor that I know very well. It's just like, who is this person that Mallory anyway? I would encourage you to watch a couple episodes of the show, all of which involve him either marooned at sea or chasing wild animals in a shirt that could not be sticking to him more. More tightly painted on with sweat. Strong facial hair game from Spencer. So great scruff on Spencer Dunton.

So, okay, Allendale Hot Sauron, Harlan's Strach. Harlan Strong Kristen Cole. I have to send Kristen Cole through the moon door, of course. Thank you. The thing about the dumb hat, I mean, he's a vicious monster. So it's an easy toss through the moon door. Here's the deal. He goes first and then you just toss the hat after him.

Like, and your hat too. And it also goes sailing. And then it's the last thing he sees before he's splattered on the rocks. It's a dumb little hat. Yeah. Trailing him. The thing about the hat, though, here's the one thing to consider. it does point toward a certain

playfulness now. He's the most self-serious asshole you've ever met. No. You don't talk about playful dress-up. It's like Damon and his murder cloak. Like, sure. But not Kristen Cole in his dumb little head. All right.

Kristen's going through the moon door. I got to say it's a shock that Kristen is the first one through the moon door. Not actually saron. Crystal. Wrist here on the Fidea Quigy. Worse than Sauron question mark. Sauron, hot saron is, you know, the name was well earned.

Hot Sauron is so hot. Allendial is just so, it's like a fastball down the middle for me. It is. Very much a type. Especially in any sort of Middle-Earthian tail. I mean, very like Aragorn coated with the long brown hair, the beard, the glint in the eye. you're wondering, can I ever break through? Can I help him shed this pain? Help him forget and move on.

Yeah. You know, also, like, it's, I can bring some of the thronesian energy of people fucking on or near the water if I'm with the Lendiel, you know, often on a boat. Yeah, we love sex on a boat. We do love sex on a boat. So that's appealing. I think I'm going to fuck hot saron. Yeah. And marry a Lendale. Keep it in the rings of power. Fuck you. Bye.

Harwin strong. Kristen is through the moon door and Harwin, you know. He's gone. That's what Mallory thinks of Reneer is tasted men. We've mourned already. Oh, God. That was a fun one. And again, I'd just like to state that Ethan and Spencer Dutton are Alzheimer's, just not eligible for the exercise.

To be clear, I still have plenty more in my back bucket. That was not, I did not burn through. All the men you've ever called hot in my text is, I promise. What a, what a startling insight. This has been. All right. Here's your third one. I'm pretty excited about this one.

I hope you will be too. Okay. So scared. Again, I told you that I would be going with timely hooks, timely pegs. And so I'd like to spend a moment in Sony's Spider-Espyter. Man universe with you. I was like, fuck Zucco. What are we talking about?

Okay, okay. All right. Spider-Man, got it. Mary, Moondor. Madam Webb. Michael Morbius, the living vampire. And Eddie Brock and Venom, who, yes, I am presenting to you as a unit. I'm marrying Eddie Brock.

It's the only choice. Michael Morbius is going out the moon door. I understand the potentiality of. Venom and Eddie Brock in the fuck, like, position I understand what you're offering to me there. But I'm just going to take your earlier definition of fucking forever with two options, I suppose. Okay. Or like a combination thereof, mix and match, you know? Fuck Dr. Michael Morbias and not literally.

Like, put him out the moon door. Uh-huh. Okay. Flip his wings before we do so that he can't, like, fly away. Like, he's just going straight to the bottom. And then... Not interested in a life of blue blood? No?

I would study spiders in the Amazon with her mom any day. Fuck Madam Webb, baby. Wow. Okay, this is a... I'm surprised. You would keep Michael Morbius in any iteration? I think here's the thing about Madam Webb. To be clear.

Not a movie I have seen. No. In terms of the character, there's still time. Our Valentine's Day hasn't ended yet. I don't, I'm not super interested in marriage or sex with someone who is clairvoyant. Not for me. Well, this is like a one-time get-out sort of situation, right? One and done.

I think this is tough because I don't know talking. Yeah, okay. Okay, so maybe in that one-time scenario, the ability to anticipate is helpful then. Okay, I can see that. That's a spin I'm willing to accept. The marrying Eddie and Venom, which was also my first instinct, here's my fear. they're in love. Like, that's the love story.

So in a marriage, do you always feel like you're on the outs? Do you always feel like the third wheel, you know? Or do you think that the thruple? I think the thruple scenario wraps its around. Raps its yearning tendrils around everyone. Yeah. Great.

Maybe we'll share the symbiote, you know what I mean? Michelle Williams had the symbiote for a while. So, you know, it happened for me. Oh, boy. That was deranged. I had a blast. I learned a lot. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis,

which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine.

Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows when. Winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep? fried turkey is now available at your local deli. Well, Bor's Head just did that. Burson with

flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it, presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borgeshead. Backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Borgeshead committed to craft since 1905. Let's move on to our second prompt today. This was inspired Joe by an email submission from Amber. Alternationhips. In honor of Valentine's Day in Avatar the Last Arabender's Live Action,

parentheses, I'm deeply afraid. Could you all tell us what is your favorite non-canon romantic pairing? I'll start with mine. Amazutara stand through and through and my one and only gripe with the original show

is that they didn't make Zutara a thing. I'm sorry, but as a former teen girl myself, Rudy Boy is 100% Katara. What Katara would have gone for? Girl he went straight for Jet at first, and even he sucked. I don't see her learning from her mistakes that fast. Amber, Mallory and I are a complete agreement with you, and I believe we'll probably talk about this at length on Friday, if not further into the future. We won't stop talking about it, I promise.

Never. Never. So we're each going to pick two. Yeah. And are we something like that around two? Boy, okay. So I have a question for you in terms of just the rules of the advertise here. Are you, when we're talking about alternativeships, Mm-hmm.

Alternative ships. Mm-hmm. Are characters who actually did hook up but then didn't wind up together, eligible? Or are you only considering characters who did not get to consummate or make their way toward each other eligible for the exercise? Because I went into the latter bucket and then I was like, did I do this wrong? Should the former be eligible as well? I have a few categories, honestly, that I was thinking from.

Wow. All right. I have way more than two. I'm so sorry. And I'll just run through them quickly. And I'll just let and then I'll end with my number one, which more closely adheres to the definition. So I've got the death got in the way category. And that's like Brianne and Jamie or Midge and Lenny. They're the reason I asked the question about how we're defining it. Like do people who actually got together but then didn't work account? Because they'd be number one. Yeah. Brian and Jamie, Midge and Lennie for Mrs. Maisel. I know that's not genre. painful. Too painful. Or spoilers for Veronica Mars that I want to talk about. Okay. Another category I have is make them gay, you cowards.

And this is Finn and Poe. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Faith and Buffy, Allison and Reneerah, Steve and Bucky. Come on. Do you know what they are? We all know what they are. Let's just make them gay.

We're with them until the end of the line. Exactly. You were my mission. You were my mission. Love that. Last category before I get to like sort of quote unquote the real one, make them a threple you cowards. And that goes out, that just goes out to Keeley, Roy and Jamie Tart from Ted Lassau. That would have been great.

Make them a powerful. That would have been great. I feel like they could all sustain that. I genuinely do. But my one that really adheres this category and we're going to revisit again in the next topic we're about to play. and Mallory already knows this about me, but I always fear that it's going to drive a wedge in our friendship. No.

I assume this would be your pick. It's Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, which has been a preoccupation of mine for the last year and a half. And if you want to talk about like Qatar and Zucco, that's the model that we're working with here. It's like a clear cut like Buffy and Spike, like, you know, Caden Sawyer, like we've seen this a million times before. None of them were sort of like pure blood supremacists, but hey, we all have things we're working through.

So, um, uh-huh. Yep. We can talk about that more later. But anyway, Jake O'Nhamradi, 100%. That was what I assumed you would pick. Yeah. I support you. You have always supported me and you even received fan art from me and willingly and gleefully.

So thank you. I sure did. I love an alternative ship. I do. I really do. I love it. So, okay, let me just say that my genuine, like, if we only got to pick one or two, my, Zuko and Katara would be in the top of the consideration set. So I don't want them to be deemed ineligible just because they were in Amber's question as the example. I think we should say they're a shared pick here. Like it's just, certainly they're on my list. I think, again, we'll talk about them more, I think, on our Friday pod. But the end of season two, that moment between them, Kataro almost healing him, offering to

heal him, readying to heal him. Like the thing that is passing between them in that instant, the tension in season three, the quest to find her mother's killer, the love triangle fodder in the play about their own lives that they're watching, their responses, the awkward energy. Like, they should be together. They should. Also, fire water? What? From the very, from season one when he's like dangling her necklace in front of her. Like, it's just, it's there. And what I love about this arc, because it, oftentimes these, this dynamic, which we see play out again and again and again, storytelling. They just didn't go for it this time for some reason. Um,

the quote unquote bad boy or whatever is on a reformation arc. And what I really like about Zucco's reformation arc is that it isn't done to impress Katara. That's not what it's about. Right. But he becomes, and she's also not like, I can fix you. No. This is also an important distinction.

Yeah. A kind of person who could be a perfect partner for her because of the maturation journey that he goes on. That's why those kinds of love stories are so satisfying. And instead, with love and respect to Ang... To hear more, check out our enemies and... Yeah, exactly. Enemies to Lovers' Trobe's course.

Someone emailed asking us to cover this on Valentine's Day. I was like, good news for you. We have a whole episode about this on the Trobs course. Enemies to Lovers. But, like, instead, with love and respect to Ang, and I do like Eng, He's a monk and a child and a judgmental vegetarian and a bad dad in the future. So I don't know. I wanted more for Katara and by more I mean Zuko.

Especially when he gets his better hair, the shaggy hair. I love the shaggy hair. The evolution of the hair across the series is one of the most satisfying things to track and a condensed rewatch. It's delightful. They go quickly from the like chopping the point tail time lapse. Oh yeah. The buzz cut has grown out so we don't have like, we don't have the awkward phase of like just to stripe the mohawk down the middle, I suppose. It's a great choice.

So that's one of my picks. And then I'm going to stick in animation for a minute here. Let me be clear before I say the thing I'm going to say. You know this. Steve knows this. Everyone listening knows this. I am a Obi-One and Satine loyalist ride or die forever. But?

However, I do feel strongly that Obi-1, Knobe, and Ventriss should have fucked. Strongly. Like, every scene they have, and this is on my mind because Ventress is about to, based on the Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Chess Season 3, Ventures is a favorite of mine. Obi-One is obviously a shared favorite of ours. every interaction that they have in the Clone Wars is crackling with a sexual tension that I find astonishing,

genuinely astonishing. My favorite example is, of course, the season four finale, revenge, where they are united against Mall. Yes. Your boyfriend. your eternal boyfriend,

Darth Mall, and Savage, oppress, and they have this ability to, like, go to anticipate. And needle, but yes,

also move in this perfect harmony with each other. We get to see Obi-Wan bathed in Sith red, and they're just flirtatious energy. She says,

I want that back. That's fine. Red's not my color. And you're looking at animated Obi-1, and you're like, isn't it? You look great. Why are you two not tearing each other's clothes off right now? Ah, what a lovely sight to wake up to when he turns and sees Ventress.

And she says, don't flatter yourself, Kenobi. It's right there. It's just right there. Come on. So that is, that's my other pick in the animated course. It's a great one. Here's one I wanted to throw out for you. Because I also would definitely have, if we're going with it, they did actually.

consummate and then it didn't work out. Jamie and Brianne, obviously, instant pick. I love the Stephen Bucky and Finn and Poe picks. Sonsa and Sex God Pod. Sure. What do you think? Yes. I guess that's better than like my actual demented. I know your, I know your actual preference here. That's my actual preference. Sons on theon. Yeah. I know you. You do know you. I know you. Sonsa, Pod is definitely like less, well, also he's alive and less problematic. And I think, I think Sonsa probably does, well, Theon would have fulfilled this prompt anyway, but she does need a beta. She's an alpha.

She needs a beta, right? So like, Pod would just be happy to surf, right? Yeah. She's a pleasure to serve at Her Majesty's pleasure. Okay, great. You like it? Yeah. King in the North.

Patrick Bain? Or just a queen's consort. I'm open to either. I'm open to either. You know, I don't know if I want Pod tied down, and I don't know if I want them to feel tied to each other, but I like the idea that after whichever Miranese, not performer is giving Pod his money back,

he can make his way to Winterfell for a little companionship. They deserve it. They deserve happiness together. Queen's concert. I've always liked them as a ship. Okay. We did it. Any others?

That's it. Wait, don't I have had some others? That's enough. That's fine. Okay. I did plenty of smuggles. Plenty of smuggles. I suspect it won't be the last time that we talk about this.

Our third prompt today. Yeah. You put this in when you said who it was from as via so many people. So many people. I could not even count. We got a romanticie question. A romanty question. Yeah.

Which is an umbrella that fits over. Fourth Wing Yeah And its sequel Yeah Books that Mallory has read And I've

I read fourth wing I haven't read the sequel yet Akatar Quarter Thorne and Roses That whole series Yeah Dragon Smut Ferry Smut

I'm prepared to talk about Fairy Smut For a second actually And then just like The fan fiction First So do you want to start with Where do you want to begin here?

I think we should start with What are your feelings on Romantasy in general? What's your relationship to But currently. Yeah. So I only discovered this, discovered this. I mean, it's only become popular in the last couple of years. And I...

This is a publishing, like, a massive trend and obsession and term right now. And TikTok bump, TikTok bounce for sure. Like, big, huge thing on TikTok, right? If you go to Target, I was not bookshopping at Target. Mallory knows as I was helping someone find Percy Jackson in the book section of Target. I was a target for light bulbs. But in the book section of Target, the category is book talk. It's called book talk and it's just Romanticy books underneath.

And that's it. And like some straight romance, but like just a lot of romanticcy. So yes, book talk, romantasy, blending the like catching a ride on the, you know, a song of ice and fire train, but make it fucking. more fucking than George's fucking was pretty embarrassing actually. So make it written by women so the fucking is less embarrassing. You don't want to talk about that pink mast on the cinnamon wind? No?

I don't know. Arrange all the way down. Lord's kiss. I'll ride for the Lord's kiss, I'll ride for the Lord's kiss. Sure. Until I die. Kiss by fire. Shosh,

sure, shit, sure. Great. So, yeah. What's your relationship to romanticism? see. So this is a newer part of my life. I mean, I've always loved romance. Do you feel like Forth Ring being your first? So I guess it depends on if we're counting. No, but I think like recently my, my college pals and I, as you know, we have a book club and this has been a very central part of that experience. I think again, because these books are like so in the public consciousness,

they feel inescapable. And then if you haven't read them, you're like, I have really missed. out on something here. I don't understand what people are talking about. I need to participate in the conversation of the moment. Which is about fucking. Fourth Wing. So I want to know what people are talking about. Yeah. It's, yeah. So I guess part of my question is, do you in any way consider

the chaste tales eligible under the Romantici umbrella like romance and fantasy, but not necessarily graphic sex like in some of these other stories? Like, the T.J. Cloan books.

House of the Surreliant Sea, under the whispering door. Those are romance. I wouldn't call those fantasy stories, but not romanticcy. I saw them in a romanticcy display at a Barnes & Noble recently, and I was like, interesting. I don't know if I would have, I don't know if I would have thought of it that way, but it was intriguing to me.

I just think I'm publishing Romances Code for fucking sex, you know? Like, there's going to be sex at some point in this. Like, not every... Storytelling. Romances, is that the case. but like most of them it is. And so I think the T.J. Kloon books are romantic and sweet. But when we're talking romantasy, we are talking there's a vivid,

vivid sex scene in this story at some point. Okay. So we're on the same page there. I read Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, both in my college pal book club, fall slash winter. We read Fourth Wing and the Fall, and it was an individual person. It basically would be Rotate who picks a book. one of the members of the book club picked fourth wing.

And then in a very rare occurrence, we collectively decided to make Iron Flame a group pick halting somebody's turn because everyone just wanted to know what happened next in the story. It ends on a big moment. It does, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, we had a lot on the lore and mythology front

that we were interested in. And also genuinely could not wait to get to the next batch of sex scenes. A lot of the emails that we got were about specifically. Again, we're getting into spoilers here, right? If you don't want to hear specific things from Fort Wing, don't talk about that. Specific interest in hearing us discuss Zaden and Violet, right? The thing that's in our notes is literally from an email we got. And I think it's the whole email, which was in all caps,

if we are not talking about Violet and Zaden on Valentine's Day, what are we doing? what, six or seven exclamation marks? That, by the way, came from not a cis female listener. You know, I was surprised and delighted. Beautiful. What are your Zadin and Violet thoughts? Which sex scene is your favorite?

Well, I mean, the one where they break all the furniture, obviously. But, like, here's the... Here's the thing I want to say about Romantasy, which is, like, I'm not here to, like, yuck anyone's yum about it. And there's, I think it's popcorn literature and there's nothing wrong with popcorn literature. There's nothing wrong with popcorn cinema. There's something wrong with popcorn television. So when I call it that, I am not denigrating it.

I will say that like when I recommend it to people, I'm not like, this is the best book I ever read. I'm like, do you want to read about some fucking in their dragons here? Like that's sort of what like fourth wing is to me because a lot of the, and I've told you this already, but like a lot of the, if you've read in the fantasy genre, in the Y.A. genre, et cetera, et cetera, you can map other characters you've read onto all of these characters. You can map sort of every single twist and turn and plot mechanic onto something else. Like, that's a bit of The Hunger Games. That's a bit of this. That's a bit of Harry Potter. That's a bit of this, et cetera. So, like, I, you know, I, someone I know read it because I told her that I read it. And she was like, I did not think it was very good. And I was like, I hear what you're saying in terms of, like,

It's not the most elevated writing I've ever read, and it's not the most ingenious, like, plot I've ever experienced. But there's something compelling about the world. We love dragons. And this mutts pretty good. So, on the mythology front, the mental link and the magical bond between the dragon and the dragon rider and the way that, like, a signet manifests from that magical bond, I found really fascinating. Yeah, I think, you know, some notes on the... But I would like in that... The plot and the pros.

Sort of to like his dark materials. You know what I mean? Like I feel like, you know, or, you know, being connected to your dire will. You know, like there are versions of that we've gotten before. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I just didn't. Yeah. Anyway, this mud is good.

I think there's better. I need you to read Iron Flame. Okay. I will. And I will say I, oh, I like the training stuff. I like Fourth Wing better than Iron Flame. I will say. But there's, I think, just an astonishing sex scene in.

Well, I'm going to, we're running, we promise a quick one. I want to, I want to zoom through this quickly and just say, on the Akatar front. Yes, so I have not read this yet, but I'm reading it this month for, actually, two of the five members of the book club had already read it. And we were like, should we do it again? And one of them was like, I've read this whole series now like five times I can't do this again. Respect, we've respected that. The three of us who hadn't read it, like, let's do. sidebook club.

The other two people don't know. And they're only going to learn about it if they hear this. And we're calling it squad battle, even though it's not a Yarrow's tale. It still felt like because this has spawned by having red fourth wing that we should call it squad battle. So I am going to read finally a chord of thorns and roses in the next.

I was going to say a few weeks. Let's go a few months to be safe. It's a busy time for us on the reading front here at the House of Ar. But shortly, I will have read this. I also recently learned Joe that Ronald D. Moore supposed to attack this on Hulu? This is a reason that I... I think this is a reason that I read it is that...

And the same with Fourth Wing as I'm like, I know these are going to get adaptations. Oh, yeah. So I would like to have opinions about casting and, like, informant. I care deeply about Charles Melton being cast as Zaden. Deeply. That's my... I love it.

Amazon, please! I have read a quarter of Thorne and Roses, a court of Mist and Fury, a court of Wings and Ruin. And apparently, I'm just looking at my own, like, Kindle list here. Apparently I read a quarter of silver flames, which means I skipped one, so I don't know why I did that, but, or maybe I read the physical copy of that.

Anyway, I've either read four or five installments in this series. I don't know why I would have skipped one, but here we are. And I just want to, like, I want to use this. Yeah. What I will say is that a quarter of thorn and roses, which is like something of like a beauty and the beast retelling, I was sort of like pretty mixed on. And then I loved a chord of mist and fury. And it takes, there's like a twist that happens into a court of mist and fury that I'm going to keep vague for you because you're about to read it, that I just put us in territory that is more enjoyable to me.

archetypes that are more enjoyable to me. So. I'm excited. Have you read more stuff from Sarah Jamest? Have you read the Crescent City series? I haven't read the Crescent City series now. I'm excited to dive in. I want to do a little reading from a court of Miston Fury for you.

Okay. A short one. Is it a sex scene? Adjacent. Okay. I'm excited. It brings us into a question we had about fairy smut. It's funny because, like, a friend of mine, a wonderful friend of mine who's an author was texting me about, like, Romantasy.

And she was talking about, like, tropes she likes. And she was talking about, she was, like, wings, the use of wings in, like, when you write sex scenes in a romanticese, setting, you open up, you know, possibilities. Okay? So in this scene, our main character, who's the first person I, is being flown by a male character who has wings. He's a fay. So, like, she's like, like, Lois Lane and Superman's arms sort of, like, thing.

He's flying, he's flying her. Are we about to get some sky sex? No. It's adjacent. I'm not, I'm not brazen enough to read a full smut sex scene on. a podcast. We can maybe we'll do that in a future. You definitely could.

If we trade off, I will do it. But I'm not going solo. That's what she said. Okay, so. Nothing wrong with going solo. Here we go. She says, I adjusted my position gripping him tighter. My knuckles brushed one of his wings, smooth and cool like silk, but hard as stone with

its stretched, taught. Indeed. Fascinating. Indeed. I blindly reached again and dared to run a fingertip along some inner edge. Resend shuddered, a soft groan slipping past my ear. That, he said tightly, is very sensitive. I snatched my finger back, pulling away far enough to see his face.

With the wind, I had to squint and my braided hair ripped this way and that, but he was entirely focused on the mountains around us. Does it tickle? He flicked his gaze to me then to the snow and ponder. that went on forever. It feels like this, he said, and leaned in so close that his lips brushed the shell of my ear, and he sent a gentle breath into it. My back arched on instinct, my chin tipping up at the caress of that breath.

Oh, I managed to say. I felt him smile against my ear and pull away. Wow. And then she goes on to ask what it's like during sex or whatever. Like the wing play in a court of misting. Yeah, it's a whole thing. So that's what you have to look forward to. And then the other thing I would say, again, we promise to keep this brief.

I think a reason that a reason that a lot of people love Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, which you mentioned, is like the smut was smutting harder than most people are used to in books, right? Yeah. I would say if you read a lot of fan fiction, which I've only recently been doing, you would be like, this is a Tuesday. So I want to recommend really quickly some Draco and Hermione fan fiction for you. And by the way, on the wing front, the Vila wing situation in some of these stories. Okay. Really quickly. I'm going to start with a basic bitch recommendation, which is by far the most popular

Draco and Hermione fan fiction. It's called Manicult. It's by an author called Senlin U. And she just got a like mainstream book deal to turn manacled into like, you know, that thing where you skim your fan fiction and make it straight fiction. Anyway, so she just got a big book deal for that. So congratulations to her. Read manicled while it's still up. It's quite dark. And then it takes like a really interesting turn. But so I just want to warn that that one's kind of dark. I wouldn't maybe start with manicold. But it is by far the most popular. She's amazing. Everything she writes, let the dark in is one she's currently working on, which has like an alternum. has an alternate tri-wizard tournament where Draco has gone to Dermestring

so he is the champion for them and Hermione never befriended Ron and Harry so she is like a much darker magic like angrier frustrated person and she is the Hogwarts champion

so that's a really good one. It's in progress. Draco, a really, really popular one, and it's a little light and fluffy and rom-com for my taste, but it's really, really popular, so I thought I mentioned it. I like it. I don't love it. Is Draco Malfoy and the mortifying ordeal of being in love? Dr.o Malfoy and the mortifying ordeal of being in love

by this is self-care, and that's when Hermione is like a badass, magical scientist, and Draco is an auror, and he's supposed to protect her. It's very good. Okay. Breathments and bad. Battle Scars by Onyx and Elm. And that's a... A really popular Drake-O and Hermione fan fiction trope is they go back to Hogwarts for their eighth year after the war is over.

Go back and take an eighth year. And what happens when they do? And he's got his dark mark on one arm. And she's got her scar from Belatrix on her arm. And how do these damage people, like, kill each other? It's very good. Beginning and end by Might Be writing is a really, really. good one. And it is about, it's a post-war fiction where Hermione works for Department of Mysteries.

I believe she's a curse breaker. And she has to clear Malfoy Manor of all its like curse and dark objects. It's very, very good. Draco has to babysit her because Lucius does not trust her alone in Malphoy Manor. And then my favorite one, it's almost done. It's not quite done. It's almost done. And I wouldn't start here because it's very long. But it's called, it's French. It's called Des Trache. the story's not French, the title's French. And it's bi-hysterical is the name of the author. And this is a really, really, really, really long, the slowest burned Hermione you'll ever read,

but so satisfying. Where I think it's sixth year, yeah, sixth year. Theodore Knott, who is a minor slitherin in the books, but a major player in the fan fiction universe, befriends Hermione. And they become really, really good friends. and that sort of changes everything going forward. And it's like some of the best writing I've ever read is that fan fiction.

And then last but not least, this one is so dark. Just like read all the tags on, if you've never, and these are all in AO3, I should say, archive of our own. If you've never read fan fiction before, please read all the tags. Please look at what you're reading. Like, be very cautious and make sure you're not reading something you don't want to. Goblet of Shadows by MKMG, which is a post-war. that Voldemort has won and is conducting his own,

like, sort of, like, demented Tri-Wizard Tournament, Hunger Games type situation. And it is a very, very, very dark and damaged Hermione. But it is really good. And the games are, like, ingenious and disturbing and fantastic goblet of shadows. That is just, like, just getting off the ground. It's currently being updated. So those are my Germini fan fiction recommendations. the smut in all of these.

En creme. Fantastic. So that's what you're looking for. I recommend. Another edition of Housea Recommends. Never fails to satisfy. That's hopefully what she said. It's indeed.

I mean, that's another thing about the, at least my experience so far with Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. And I think much of the tale-telling and the larger romanticcy genre, you know, centering a female pleasure. Let's celebrate it. Right. I will tell you that when I was revisited, when I was like, let me figure out my favorite Zanian violet sex scene. And I, these are long books. Long books.

I was like, how am I going to find? Long sex scene sections. Yeah, like 20 pages. Pages and pages. Yeah. And I was like, how am I going to find? find this one that I want to revisit before the pod. And I went to a favorite Joe Malwell. What am I going to type into my Kindle? And I typed her with my tongue and found it immediately.

In order to find that wing section that is right you, I put like finger traced wing, like something. I was like, I was something where I was like, how am I going to find this? And I was like wing finger tracing something like that. Love literature. By the way, there's a lot of really bad fan fiction. I'm not recommending all fan fiction. Those are good ones, I promise. With some incredible gems. There's some real bad stuff, and then there's just some, like, masterpieces where

you're like, why is this better than any book I've ever read? I need to get back into fan fiction. I used to be obsessed. It's been a minute for me. I'm going to... The smut that awaits you, Mallory. I'm excited for you. Trust me, I know.

Again, it used to be a sincere passion of... mine back of the day. But it's been a minute. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time to rediscover that love. There's stuff that I'm just like this. There's plenty of stuff that I'm like, too much for me, personally. I didn't think I had a ceiling, but I have found it. But you found it. I have found it. Always good to learn something about ourselves. But yeah, character driven. Okay, but on the spot front, let's just say. And the reason that Zadin and Violet, I think, works so well in fourth wing and beyond is this is a trope that we, that I like. and you'll find it in Akitar as well.

It's sort of the like Gail Pita Katniss trope, right? Where it's like you've got one love interest who's like interested in protecting and you have one love interest who's interested in empowering. Right? And so like the empowering love interest,

which is, you know, is your Zaden, is your PETA, is your whatever. So then when it comes to sex, it's like so character driven in that because it's about like power and expressing and finding your power for a lot of these characters. So, and then also if you're inside the characters,

because there's like, if you just do like a description of sex, like sometimes you're just like, I'm sorry, what body part wear I don't care? But if you describe like how it makes someone like feel, that's so much, that's such better writing. That is one of the things about the, again, I was frankly astonished by some of the description. In four thing and Ironflare.

I was like, wow. Like you said, if you're spending a lot of time in fan fiction, it's just a Tuesday, I think that's correct. But the mental link that they share and the way that we get to be in the inner monologue is a, it's a compelling way to spend, you know, 15 pages at a time. It is a spicy meatball. It's a spicy little meatbox. It sure is. Oh, man. Never thought I'd read a book with the, the, the, the, the, the, you know.

sprays inner walls in it quite that many times. But here we are. Never thought I'd read about stroking people's wings on a podcast. That was beautiful. Life is full of twisting turns. A beautiful passage beautifully shared. And speaking of beautiful passages. Yeah. That brings us to our last prompt today from Christina.

Glad to know Steve is still with us. I was sure. I was like, I can't believe Steve is listening to. Or Steve. We almost like, put this on Carlos. This is almost like, poor Carlos. Thank you, Steve, for being here.

I wouldn't miss this for the world. From Christina, ahead of the Valentine's episode, I was wondering what you think the most romantic lines ever written are. Mr. Knightley saying to Emma, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. Harry saying to Sally that he loves it when she gets a little crinkle between her eyes when she's looking at him like he's nuts. And this is weirdly specific, but in the special edition of Beauty and the Beast,

I think for the 25th anniversary, when Bell is reading Shakespeare to him, and he sighs happily and asks her to read it again. What a dream, honestly. Okay, what a question. I found this paralyzing to consider. And so I decided to limit myself to one pick from a book and one pick from a show that I have recently consumed.

Because that way, I don't have to go through an entire history of consumption and try to narrow the list to like 25, 50. How would I even cap it? And also then it leaves open for me a whole future of subsets of categories that I can rip off most romantic lines from. So I'm just going with recent-ish read, recent-ish show. I don't think either of my picks will surprise you based on that parameter that I've set for myself. I think how many smuggles do you have here, Joanna? Like so many. And I will just restrain myself, I promise.

No, read a wall. I think I think I know what you're, well, I thought I knew what your book passage was going to be. I think you do. Oh, okay. I think you know. You said recent me though. Recent-ish. Like, just two years, a year and a half, two years count is recent.

This is incorrect then. Tell me, tell me what yours is and I'll tell you what I thought it was going to be. Okay. And again, I just felt like I had to put some, like, I don't know, I'll just be here for six hours reading beautiful lines that have made me contemplate the nature of connection. Okay. So my, you're not going to be surprised when I say this. I think you won't be. Is it, okay. Yes. Is it tomorrow, tomorrow? No, though I did almost pick something from that, but I, that I didn't. I read this before that. So again, I'm maybe stretching recent, but I think the last couple of years counts as reset. I went with, this is how you lose the time more. Oh, of course. Yeah. Sorry. I feel dumb. I didn't pick it. Sure. No, no. No. So, okay, I'm going to read the specific snippet, like the heart of it, the core of it, and then I'll read a little bit of the surrounding passage. I want to meet you in every place I have loved. This is the most romantic thing I have encountered in the last few years. This has floored me because I can't think of anything that better sums up wanting someone. in your life than wanting to share the things that you care about with them and that have been

meaningful to you with them and then wanting them to do the same for you, right? How we show our love. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. That's how we show love. Here's the longer version of the passage. Red, I love you.

Red, I will send you letters from every when telling you so. Letters of only one word. Letters that will brush your cheek and grip your hair. Letters that will bite you. Letters that will mark you. I'll write you. by bullet ant and spider wasp. I'll write you by shark's tooth and scallop shell. I'll write you by virus and the salt of a ninth wave flooding your lungs. I'll stop here. I'll stop. This is probably

not how this is done. I want flowers from cephalus and diamonds from Neptune, and I want to scorch the thousand earths between us to see what blooms from the ash. So we can discover it, hand in hand, context and context, intelligible only to each other. I want to meet you in every place I have loved. I don't know how it's done between such as us read, but I can't wait to find out together. Love, Blue. So beautiful. That book is just like, I should just reread that book. It'll take you just a couple hours if you haven't read it. Donning. If you hear this, Valentine's Day afternoon, you have no plans tonight. Go to the store. Go to your local bookshop. Okay, this is how you lose the time more.

Read the most beautiful prose you've ever read. It's gorgeous. Gorgeous plans. What do you think I was going to pick? Well, will you do your show, and then I will tell you what I thought you were going to pick. I might just make what I thought you were going to pick my pick because I was so sure you're going to pick it. So my show pick is another thing that we have chatted about that I don't think will surprise you. It came up not only when we covered this show, but then on my dad.

Top Moments of the Year list. And it is Jeff from Yellow Jackets saying I could have gone strawberry. No, it wasn't. It's our guy, Crowley, saying to Azirafel in the Good Omen Season 2 finale, this vulnerable confession. We build toward the, again, if I had to just zero in a one line, one snippet that just absolutely shattered my heart. We could have been us.

We could have been us. I just can't think of anything more romantic than that. the larger confession that builds toward that. And just imagine as you're hearing me read this, that is David Dennett choking this out syllable by syllable, barely able to stand the anguish and the fear of rejection and the longing in his heart. We've known each other a long time.

We've been on this planet for a long time. I mean, you and me. I could always rely on. you, you could always rely on me. We're a team, a group, a group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. I mean, the last few years, not really. And I would like to spend, I mean, if Gabriel and Bealsabub can do it, go off together, then we can. Just the two of us. We don't need heaven. We don't need hell. They're toxic. We need to get away from them. Just be in us. You and me. What do you say?

Remember how much I cried watching that? The entire span of history and existence and heaven and hell and angels and demons and humanity to boil down the one thing that you need and want and have allowed yourself to finally believe you deserve just being us. It's beautiful. I loved it. So those are the two that when I was like, what recently has really worked its way into my heart? Those were the two that I came up with. What did you think I was going to pick?

What are you picking? Well, when I sent over the topic ideas and you really liked this one, you're like, I know right away what I'm going to pick, I was so sure that it was going to be this from the amber spyglass. I will love you forever, whatever happens, till I die and after I die. And when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I'll drift about forever all my atoms till I find you again. I'll be looking for you every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one will ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you will live in birds and flowers and dragonflies

and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams. And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won't just be able to take one they'll have to take to one of you and one of me. Perfection. If I had broad end in the time, absolutely. I mean, it's an all-time one. It's so gorgeous and so sad. And now I want to cry and gist it on a bench.

The Botanical Gardens in Oxford and weep. Weep. I have a few extra smuggles. I will go really quickly, I promise. Miley Miller, who wrote Song of Achilles and Circe, two of the most poignantly romantic books I have ever read retellings of Greek stories, Greek mythology, Greek epics. The Song of Achilles one is quite famous.

This is the basic bitch answer. It is, I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell. I would know him blind by the way his breaths come and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death at the end of the world. That's a song of Achilles quote, Patrick Lee's. and Achilles. This is the one from Searcy that I really love. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours.

As stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me. Absolutely beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Malin Miller. Read everything she writes. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. People has so many beautiful romantic quotes.

But this one, I would enter your sleep. if I could and guard you there and slay the thing that hounds you as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me. And then the last one I'll do is it's a poem by Wendell Berry. Don't don't keep going. Don't stop. Okay. Let's go with this little weirdo Henry Miller of French. Wow. Henry Miller right. Yeah. Henry Miller's written a lot of things, but Henry Miller once wrote. Her image corresponded to nothing that I had formed in my heart. She had intruded it, slipped it, like thinnest gauze between the crevices of the brain and a moment of lesion.

And when the wound closed, the imprint had remained, like a frail leaf traced upon a stone. Ooh. Just love that. Slipped it like the thinest gauze. Good old Janeair. Yeah, of course. This one's for the Swifties who love the song Invisible String. This is a classic Jane Eyre quote,

I have a strange feeling with regard to you as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly nodded to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave, I'm afraid the court of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me. That is beautiful. Shit. Um, Anna Cranada, Tolstoy.

This is, I'm almost done. Oh, we're going. We're going. We're almost done. I love this. This one's really good. This is great. This is, this isn't about it. I love that I was like, time, time parameter, you're like, Tolstoy. Tolstoy.

Bronte. This is amazing. I love it. Keep going. I'm having a blast. This is not about Anna. It's about Kitty. Our, like, secondary love story. This, this one haunts me. He stepped down trying not to look long at her as if she were the sun, yet he saw her like the sun, even without looking.

But in that situation where you're like trying not to look at someone that you're like so drawn to and you just like look anywhere other than them and then but you're always tracking them anyway. that feeling of like knowing where someone is as sure as you know where the sun is in the sky. Incredible. Beautiful. Toal story. What a guy. Two more to go. This one's a poem by Wendell Berry and the last one's dedicated to you.

This one is Wild Rose by Wendell Berry. And I love this one because it's more about this is the Mary instead of the fuck. This is the like long-term relationship. And this is like how you forget. sort of in the every day of companionship, you sort of forget that flesh of passion, and then it sort of returns, right? So sometimes hidden from me in daily custom and in trust so that I live by you unaware as by the beating of my heart. Suddenly, you flare in my sight, a wild rose blooming at the edge of thicket, grace and light where yesterday was only shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing again what I chose before. Beautiful Wendell Berry poem. Last one at least, this is inspirational. I love that. This is for you. It's from one of my favorite books called Code Name Verity, which I've talked about before actually on House of Rees episode, written by Elizabeth Ween, I want to say is how you pronounce your list name, but it could be wrong. And I love this passage. It's like being in love, comma, discovering your best friend. So that's just an ode to friendship here at the end of all things. of our smutty, sappy, fluffy. Oh, my God. Lurid Valentine's Day Quicky. So, here we are.

This is fun. Yeah, this is great. Oh, I loved it. Oh, my God. Those were gorgeous passages. Beautiful. Turns out people can write good, you know? In Declub.

You got so many emails about Declub, by the way. Oh. De club. Welcome to DeClub, where we read Smut and also Tolstoy. We can tell Tolstoy. Tolstoy, what a guy. You're on a role of iconic quotes recently. That little weirdo Henry Miller.

We're all in here together, you know? Ah, this was special. I had a blast. Thank you to everyone who joined us in the club for the V-Day Quicky. Always great to spend time with the bad babies. Password. Password meaty. Please remember the password when you come to the club.

Not wet and messy. Bad baby. All right. Thank you and sorry to Steve for producing this episode. Steve Allman, as always. Origen Ramp Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode, Jomi Adan for his social work on this episode. And to all of you, the bad baby.

babies. The bad babies. For sharing your love with us. Yeah. Love it. We'll be back on Friday. Avatar the Last Airbender, top animated moments. We cannot wait.

The Midnight Boys. We'll be with you tomorrow for a Madam Web extravaganza. What more could you want? Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day, bad babies.