This week, we’re talking about Greek mythology in romance! On top of our regularly scheduled introspection about pop culture – I’m always here to digress and distract we do some lore drops and chat about some interesting aspects of Greek mythology adaptations. Most interesting, I feel? The conversation about how Demeter gets rewritten from a reasonably over protective mother grieving her (temporary) loss to… an abusive narcissist who wants to control Persephone and gets framed as a villain.
You can listen to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
This week, Adrie lets me take the wheel on an expansive episode all about why we (broadly, but not entirely) like incest in romance and see it as a site not just for taboos but for a deep intimacy. I use my literature degree real hard here, finally figuring out what the abject is just in time to make a case for it in eroticizing incest.
Check out our podcast wherever you get podcasts and please, because I don’t have a social media presence, share with folks who like this stuff! (And even with the ones who hate it because they’ll learn some shit, I swear!)
Adrie Rose and I have made a podcast for all things romance (and beyond – we’re going to talk about romance and eroticism IN pop culture, not just romance novels and erotic works)! This has been in the works for months and I’m so happy to do this with Adrie, one of the coolest and funniest people I know!
Pages and Prejudice
By Adrie Rose & Stitch
Join two lifelong romance enthusiasts, and professional haters, as we dive deep into the world of trending romances. From swoon-worthy moments to cringe-worthy clichés, we dissect the tropes, tea, and taboos of Romancelandia, BookTok, and beyond. No trope is off-limits as we explore why we love, hate, and love to hate the stories that captivate us. Tune in for all the tea on love, lust, and everything in between!
Our first episode, on monster smashing, is out now. and you can listen to it everywhere you listen to your podcasts! Please listen, laugh, rate, subscribe, and share — especially because social media is THROTTLING our reach on Instagram and TikTok when we try to get people listening.
How do I convince Laurell K Hamilton that it’s okay to use “naughty” language that’s also direct?
I know I keep complaining about this for ages, but how can I refrain when the first part of Chapter 25 has Anita noting that in heels, she’s tall enough that she and Richard’s hips are pressed against each other and “the soft mound of his body lay warm and solid against [her].”
Again, that’s his dick, he’s got the beginnings of an erection, and everyone – writer and characters alike – is too old to resort to blurry vagueness around genitals that should be colliding momentarily.
Trope Symptoms: obsessive brothers in the way of romance, clueless sisters/sister figures, a reincarnator or transmigrator step or adoptive sister changes the story a bit too much, frequently set in a BL novel transmigration series, boundaries pushed but not crossed,
Genre/Sub-genre: Boys Love (sort of), romantic fantasy
I think my biggest question as I started this segment of Smolder is “are Graham and Anita gonna smash?”.
As we covered last time, the Anitaverse is not kind to characters of color and their characters get assassinated in a way that white male characters usually don’t… unless they (allegedly) represent one of Hamilton’s former loves. Graham is one of those characters that has never felt like he was respected in the narrative. He was a character who was mildly annoying and almost instantly removed from the running for a shot at being one of Anita’s sweeties… and it was frustrating because Graham is not good enough to be a boo but serial rapist and murderer Olaf might be? It’s infuriating.
Trope Symptoms: bisexuals don’t exist, binaries abound, gay dudes in canon are now heterosexual in the transmigrator’s real life, tragic backstory as a reason for being gay, female transmigrator, stolen capture targets, a series so homophobic and gay at the same time,
Genre/Sub-genre: Boys Love (sort of), romantic fantasy
As Seen In: I Ran Away From the Hunter, I’m Engaged to an Obsessive Male Lead, Taming My Villainous Brother, Surviving As A Maid, Touch My Brother and You Die, The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Let’s Hide My Little Brother, I Became the Younger Sister of the Regretful Obsessive Male Lead, I Became The Servant Who Received The Crown Prince’s Obsession, This BL Novel Is Ruined Now
If you’re an avid webtoon reader, you may have caught the images from and responses to Get Schooled chapter 125.
The chapter utilizes racial slurs, a Black character being racist against Koreans, drawn along the lines of racist caricature, and subject to antiblack racism.
The chapter started going viral on TikTok and Tumblr and, about 24 hours ago, was pulled from the English version of Webtoon. (It is of course still up on the Korean version and there’s next to no chance that it will be pulled there.)
Here’s the thing about Get Schooled: if you know anything about modern South Korean conservatism, this won’t be a surprise to you. If you’ve actually been paying attention to this webtoon – which has used a radfem (but not… technically in the way online leftist US-ians use it to stand in for “terf”) elementary school teacher as a creepy bad guy in one arc – Get Schooled kind of… highlights a lot of concerns of the modern day conservative (male) youth especially in Korea.
Obviously.
It is a Korean webtoon.
I stopped reading the series during the arc with the “radfem” teacher because, as someone who’s friends with several Korean feminists and who keeps an eye on the news/feminist thought, theory, and practice there… I was able to recognize the absolutely unsubtle dogwhistles and bullhorns at play in that arc.
Sachio Kurumizawa is an omega mouse manga artist, and Ukano, the alpha fox, is his editor… but Sachio can’t help but feel uncomfortable around Ukano.
He always seems to look at Sachio with predatory eyes.
One night, Sachio goes into heat at an omega-only bar, and Ukano saves him.
Unfortunately, Sachio has no idea how long he’ll stay in heat… and then, Ukano offers to help him stop it.
Will Sachio say yes to getting between the sheets with Ukano despite his terror of being devoured…!?
Thinky Thoughts
Omegaverse is obviously a majorly important thing in my life. I am always reading it, thinking about it, and writing it. I only haven’t put out some horrifying Mahito/Junpei omegaverse yet because there are so many other, worse AUs that I’ve been busy with.
Anyway, I got into The Foxy Mouse’s Romance because… I saw a TikTok about it. For a site that punishes you for basically wiggling a toe out of step, the social media platform sure has become the main first site/sight for me when it comes to spicy webtoons and manga.
When we last left Anita, she was busy being all up in her feelings because her pretty pretty dress has triggered her latent mommy/stepmommy/grandmommy issues about her appearance. Obviously, we’re still here in chapter fourteen. Anita is still upset. She’s so upset, actually, that she trips and almost falls in the middle of the street, something that triggers Rodina’s mockery and makes Ru defend her against his sister.
(Which, kind of makes it clear that if Rodina doesn’t get brainwashed… she’s going to die. She can’t live and be that opposite Anita to the point where her brother chooses to defend Anita over her.)
So let’s start with a meaty quote:
“It’s a spike heel on cobblestones, guys, anyone can trip,” I said, but I stayed where Ru had put me with his arm around me and him between us. I let myself put most of my energy into shoveling the emotional shit that I could feel inside my head and body. Emotions didn’t just live in the head, or the heart, they burrowed down into your gut, they poured over your skin, they filled up your eyes, they spilled out your fingertips and toes. Emotions were everywhere if you just let yourself feel them, and I’d worked hard to learn how to feel instead of stuff everything out of sight until it erupted in rage or made terrible choices. I was concentrating so hard on working my issues that I didn’t hear what Rodina said to me.
“I’m sorry, Rodina, what did you say?”
“I said, have you ever seen us trip, any of us?” Rodina asked, peering around her brother at me.
I knew the us meant the Harlequin. “I’ve seen you all mess up in fight training.”
“We can lose, but that’s not the same thing as tripping on a stone. You are so damn mortal, my queen.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know I disappoint you, Rodina, you aren’t winning any prizes with me either.”
“I feel your pain and confusion, and it hurts me that you are so unhappy, but tonight I simply don’t seem to care.”
Anita is so full of emotions and I get it. I get it. But it’s also… she only just told Ru and Rodina that she didn’t care that they were sad about their third sibling’s death because he tried to kill her. So why on earth is she expecting Rodina to ever have empathy for her when she’s made it clear that her empathy won’t be aimed at them ever?
Femme fatale Veronica is sentenced to death for obsessing over the prince. With her life now in danger, she boards a ship to escape, unaware that it belongs to her archnemesis, the alluring Prince Halid. He agrees to help her, but only on the condition that she pretends to be his wife!
My Thoughts:
In the introduction to Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, he notes that he “looked especially at cultural forms like the novel, which I believe were immensely important in the formation of imperial attitudes, references, and experiences”. He goes on to say that:
“I do not mean that only the novel was important, but that I consider it the aesthetic object whose connection to the expanding societies of Britain and France is particularly interesting to study. The prototypical modern realistic novel is Robinson Crusoe, and certainly not accidentally it is about a European who creates a fiefdom for himself on a distant non European Island.”
I have wanted to cite Edward Said in an analysis of Lies Become You from the second that I saw the first chapter of this Korean webtoon and noped out of it last year.
Deep in the heart of 19th Century London, a young nobleman named Cain walks the shadowy cobblestone streets of the aristocratic society in which he was born. Forced to become an Earl upon the untimely death of his father, Cain assumes the role of head of the Hargreaves, a noble family with a dark past. With Riff, his faithful manservant, and Mary Weather, his 10-year-old adopted sister, Cain investigates the mysterious crimes that seem to follow him wherever he goes.
Thinky Thoughts
The sequel to the original Earl Cain series (first published in 1991), Kaori Yuki’s Godchild is one of the single most formative pieces of media in my life. Honestly, between this and Angel Sanctuary, Kaori Yuki’s body of work has actually shaped a huge portion of my interests and personality. Even my early writing as a tadpole owes to her brilliant worldbuilding, capable writing, and gorgeous art.
After being involved in a car accident together, Hajin is asked by Sihyeon to take care of Sihyeon’s younger sister after his death. Hajin never expected that to mean he would wake up in the hospital in Sihyeon’s body instead of his own. Even worse, Sihyeon was an infamous idol who would do anything for money, had multiple sponsors, and was apparently about to abandon the boy band he was a part of to sign a new contract with a larger agency. At first, Hajin believes the public’s negative opinion about Sihyeon, but the more he learns about Sihyeon’s miserable circumstances, the more enraged he becomes. Determined to get revenge in Sihyeon’s stead, Hajin decides to reach out to an old acquaintance for help. However, the deeper he goes into his revenge plot, the more people he becomes entangled with…
Stitch's Media Mix 
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