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- [00:00]
A
Hi, it's Rachel Hampton, the host of Normal Gossip. I am here with Alex Sujong Laughlin, the host of Try Hard and producer extraordinaire. Hello, Alex. Hello. And I'm here with Patrick Redford, the host of Only if youf Get Caught. Patty, what's up? I'm doing great. It's good to be here with you again. So now that the year's almost over, what are you excited about for 2026? This year you have overseen a transition of Normal Gossip. You've launched your own show. You've helped Patti launch his own. Are you going to take over the world next year? Yeah.
- [00:36]
B
I am tired as we're recording this. I am counting down my remaining work weeks of the year because I'm ready for a rest. I went a little bit hard in 2025. Something I really appreciate about Radiotopia is that they don't pressure us to always be producing and always be putting stuff out. And so I think I'm going to.
- [00:58]
A
Take a few months to just cook.
- [01:02]
B
To just, you know, let the ideas compost, process everything that's happened this year, work on my book, and then maybe in Q2 I'll come back and I'm really amped to get started on future seasons of Try Hard and Only if youf Get Caught.
- [01:19]
A
That is so exciting and also such an important point that you make that Radiotopia gives us so much freedom to take the time we need to reset between projects. Because I think at this point, we all are aware that constant production does not create the best products. And so I fully agree with you. I'm super excited for season 10.
- [01:43]
B
Oh, my God, a huge season.
- [01:47]
A
Exactly. We're calling it All Stars. Wow. And that means that we want to make sure that it is lives up to the idea of 10 seasons of normal Gossip, which means that we want to put as much time as possible into it. And Radiotopia really allows us to do that. Oh.
- [02:05]
B
Oh, my gosh. I love that so much. Phadrig, what are you excited for?
- [02:09]
A
Well, I guess maybe this is a selfish answer, but I'm looking forward to having our the whole season that we made out there.
- [02:14]
C
Like, people seem to really be liking.
- [02:16]
A
The first few episodes that came out.
- [02:19]
C
But we're just sort of getting to this, like, larger thesis that we're building to through everything.
- [02:23]
A
So, like, I'm excited to just keep building on that. I'm excited to listen to the rest of gear.
- [02:28]
C
Had a lot of people hitting me.
- [02:29]
A
Up saying that they only found out about the podcast through the trailer on that show. So I'm excited to be surprised. Honestly. Like, that's what I like when I refresh the podcast app and see, like, that a new EP has popped up.
- [02:40]
C
I'm like, oh, like, song exploder got them.
- [02:43]
A
Like, that's crazy. You know, just I like being caught off guard. I mean, sounds like 2026 is gonna be a huge year for all of us. Which is why it would be so incredible if y' all could donate to the annual Radiotopia fundraiser to help us make our dreams come true. If you want shows like our to exist and thrive in 2026 and beyond and help our podcast neighbors at Radiotopia, please donate today at Radiotopia fm. Donate thank you so much. Free audio post production by alphonic.com. Hello and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and in each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonym morsel of gossip from the real world. Now, technically, you are listening to Rachel of Christmas Past, because Rachel of Christmas Present is probably drinking a hot toddy and watching Die Hard for the fifth time this month. We here at the Normal Gossip Team cannot say how much we appreciate y' all and the way that you have stood ten toes down behind all of us this year. So to express our gratitude, we wanted to share this steamy little holiday treat every couple of months over on the subscriber feed, I host our book club, where I make some of my colleagues drink wine and discuss esteemed literature such as Rebecca Yarros Fourth Wing. We recorded the following episode from a hotel room floor at our annual Defective Retreat in August. It is truly one of my favorite memories from this year. And if you absolutely love this episode, which I have a feeling a lot of you will consider subscribing at the friend or friend of a friend level. We just released our second boozy book club installment where we discussed Ice Planet barbarians, which is somehow even hornier than four. I know. If you want to give yourself the gift of joy and smut for as little as $5 a month, go to defector.com normalgossip to subscribe. Merry Christmas, y', all, and a happy New Year. Hello, friends and friends of friends. I am reporting to you live from our company retreat, and I am joined on the floor of a hotel room, sipping some by none other than Kelsey McKinney and Brandi Jensen. Hello.
- [05:05]
C
Hi. So happy to be here.
- [05:07]
B
Hello, Rachel. Hello, Brandi.
- [05:10]
A
I'm so excited for today's episode, which I have corralled all of you into. Because I decided to read the Romantasy novel 4th Wing by Rebecca Yarros, which is very popular and I think we all have a lot of thoughts about it.
- [05:30]
C
When you said you had read it, I was like, oh, yes, I devoured that in a day last year. Have also read the sequel. Remember absolutely nothing about what happened in it. Because to me, it was what I'm looking for in the Romantasy experience. And what it provided is the feeling of having information sort of caress the outside of my brain.
- [05:52]
A
Yeah.
- [05:53]
C
Without ever settling into any of the creases or burdening me with anything that even remotely approaches knowledge. And it was perfect for that. It's just, you know, a sort of light tickle of the exterior of my cerebellum, maybe other places, I don't know. And then it was gone in the morning. It was a perfect one night stand of a read.
- [06:21]
B
Yeah. I read the book specifically so that we could have this conversation in which I feel like I've served my country to do so. But as I was reading it, I was becoming like more of an apologist for A Court of Thorns and Roses because I was like, oh, I actually like. I liked reading those books and I felt like the plot was better. But now that you're speaking, I'm like, is it possible that it's just been so long that I forgot what was in those books entirely? It is so like, what a positive experience I had in the past.
- [06:50]
A
You remember only the Sarah Bellum tickling thing. I remember the tickle of Sarah J. Maas and not any of the other parts of it. I feel like we should establish both our Romantasy and Fourth Wing bona fides. So I will start off. Brandi knows this because she heard me say this in a meeting. But my intro to writing was writing self insert Twilight fanfiction. Which is why I am here. This is why I'm the woman I am today. So Romantasy is deep in my bones, but I haven't actually. This is the first one of the recent boom of Romantasy novels that I've actually read. Like, I never read A Court of Thorns and Roses. I don't even know what the other ones are that all have the kind of same cover where you see these bookshelves on TikTok where all the books kind of look the same. And I'm always like, what is that? I do love Holly Black, who was a old school YA novelist. But this is my first intro into like TikTok Romantasy.
- [07:51]
C
So I am a longtime fantasy lover and then separately from that, a sort of more recent romance reader. And so I got into Romantasy as somebody who really enjoys fantasy. And I often find myself in the position of sort of like pushing my glasses up my nose and saying, like, I object to an inconsistency I've discovered in the magical system that this world is deploying. I think actually if you're going to be converting pleasure into the ability to like, move objects with your mind, then I don't think that you should be able to. Yeah. So I like, really, I nerd out on that aspect and it annoys me, but I do. I find Romantasy interesting. Just from somebody who's interested in trends in the publishing market, I think that. So Rebecca Yarros is a great example. She's somebody who had written, like, very traditional romance books. She wrote military romance. She's like a military wife. And so she wrote, you know, romances where a woman's husband is like deployed and then comes back. I don't know, I haven't read any of them. I assume that's what military romance is.
- [09:07]
B
So you're talking about fourth wing.
- [09:09]
C
But then her agent was like, oh, there's a big interest in Romantasy. Do you want to, like, can you write? Can you insert fantasy into like the military romances that you already have been writing? And this is where fourth wing comes. It's like a kind of like she wrote it sort of on spec because the interest for something like that existed before her meeting the need. And I find that dynamic fascinating and like a little unsettling.
- [09:39]
B
That also makes a lot of sense to me because I feel like the romance aspects of fourth wing are much stronger than the fantasy aspects and particularly the world building. And like, the way that magic works feels very weak and str. And so it makes sense to me that she like, came from writing military romances because at its core, this book is like kind of a military romance. My relationship with Romantasy is I don't really have one. I read all the, like, rom coms, books like the Emily Henrys. I read those. My problem is that I don't like fantasy. I don't want to read about a battle. In fact, when I'm reading fourth wing, I'm flipping, flip, flip, flip through the battle. That's not my business. Goodbye.
- [10:22]
C
I don't care. I want a sorcerer. I want a mage. I want, like, give me magic spelled M A G I C, K, please. I want it. I need it. I love it.
- [10:36]
B
I'M like, tell me who's dead and let me out of here.
- [10:38]
A
You said, give me the list of dead and dying at the end of the battle. And that's all I need.
- [10:43]
B
Yeah, I don't need it.
- [10:44]
A
I feel like we are kind of dancing around the plot of this novel, so I feel like we should get into it.
- [10:49]
C
So is the novel.
- [10:50]
A
And you know what? We're gonna get into that. But I feel like I think this discuss will probably flow from us going through the plot of this novel and, you know, pinpointing the moment at which you started flipping and the moment at which you started flipping. And then the moment at which I was like, I'm gonna start listening to this in the audiobook form because that is how I finished this novel was on 1.2x speed on Spotify. This is the time of year where it feels like everything just piles up. There's holiday parties, there are gifts, and to buy, there's a whole season I need to make. I'm always looking to take something off my plate and that's why I love Butcherbox, which takes something off my plate by putting something better on it. Clean, high quality protein delivered right to my door so that my meals can stay simple, satisfying and nourishing. Even in December. I got a custom box from Butcherbox which included not just Alaskan salmon and cod, but scallops, shrimp, chicken thighs, steak. I haven't had to shop for protein in a really long time. It is so nice to be able to just thaw out what's in my freezer and make it and not have to think about it. As an exclusive offer. Our listeners get free steak in every box for a year, plus $20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com gossip that's right, your choice of filet mignon, New York strip or ribeye in every box for an entire year, plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That is butcherbox.com gossip don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to target nearly every mood and health concern you can think of. I'm talking about Mood.com's incredible line of functional gummies and you can get 20% off your first order@mood.com with promo code. Gossip Listen, you can find gummies to just get you high pretty much anywhere these days, but Mood's Functional Gummies combine premium federally legal THC with targeted botanicals to help you get into the perfect mood, usually in as little as 15 minutes. And everything ships discreetly right to your door. No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep. Best of all, not only is every Mood product backed by a 100 day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code gossip. So head to mood.com, find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for, and let Mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code gossip when you checkout to save 20% on your first order. This book starts off with our female main character whose name is now escaping me.
- [13:54]
B
Uh huh. See, it just tickled right over. It's gone.
- [13:58]
A
Does anyone here remember her name?
- [14:01]
B
Violet.
- [14:01]
A
You're right.
- [14:02]
C
Violet Serengal.
- [14:03]
A
Yes. Violet Sorengale.
- [14:05]
C
Sorengale. That was close.
- [14:09]
A
Very close. That is one benefit of the audiobook. I learned how to pronounce all these names, which is very helpful. Specifically. Specifically with the female dragon's name. Cause it's spelled S, G, A, E, Y, L. And I saw that.
- [14:20]
C
Sigail.
- [14:21]
A
Sigail.
- [14:22]
C
Sigail.
- [14:22]
A
Sigeil. So this is about a society that has been at war with its neighbors for 400 years and they're now at the point where every child is conscripted into some sort of service. Either you are an archivist or you are a Dragon Rider, or you are just in the infantry, you're just cannon fodder, basically.
- [14:45]
B
I think there are also other places you could be, but they're not our business.
- [14:48]
A
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So Violet has been trained from birth to be a scribe. And then her mother, who is the general of the army.
- [14:58]
B
Evil.
- [14:59]
A
Evil decides she's mean mommy for real. She decides at the beginning of the novel. Violet, I know you trained to be reading books, but you're gonna go ride a dragon even though you have a disease that is very clearly Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which Rebecca Yarros also has. Self insert queen. Hello. I see you and I respect you. I too want a large man named Zayden to love me.
- [15:28]
B
Not Zaden.
- [15:29]
A
Zayden is the name of our male hero.
- [15:33]
C
I feel like my extreme joint flexibility could come in really handily in certain situations. I'm just saying.
- [15:40]
B
What's funny though is she doesn't even use that.
- [15:42]
A
No, not at all. Not at all. So Violet enters this military academy where she is literally her entire Thing is, she's going to die because you have to be the strongest of the strong to be a Dragon Rider. And basically something like 40% of the people who enter the Dragon Rider Academy die.
- [16:01]
B
Yeah. This book, I feel, really suffers from a problem which is the main stake is, is she going to die?
- [16:07]
A
Yes.
- [16:08]
B
And the problem is there are 600.
- [16:09]
A
Pages of this book and also two.
- [16:11]
B
Other books, also several other books. So you're like, if there are, I don't know, 1800 pages of material to come after this, she's certainly not going to fall off this plank. She has to walk, like, there's no way.
- [16:22]
C
I also, like, this book suffers again from this sort of world building problem that you have, which is, okay, we're supposed to buy that. This is a society in which parents willingly just gamble, like, on one out of four children are going to die in this academy. You would think at some point there might be some kind of popular uprising that says, hey, can you stop feeding our children into like the meat grinder of this endless war, Please and thank you. Especially since the dragon riding academy takes children of like, you know, noble birth. They're like the upper crust of society and they are cut down just as easily. I just do not buy that rich people in any society are actually willing to sacrifice their own in service to the cause.
- [17:14]
B
It's also kind of wild because not only is your, like, potential for death very high, the potential for death is mostly also while you're still in school to become able to ride the dragon. And I'm like, it feels like maybe you could just like, look at some of these people and say, not you, actually, you're gonna go home. Instead of being like, I don't know, why don't you run up this gauntlet and see if we. We'll see if you die.
- [17:37]
C
It's very wasteful. Yes.
- [17:38]
B
Yeah. A lot of wasted lives.
- [17:40]
A
So many wasted lives. To the point where I'm like, no wonder your military force is constantly needing, like, replenishment. It's like all these kids who could have been doing something else are all dying in the first 24 days of this Dragon Academy. So you get to this academy, you go through your first year, which includes a series of challenges. The first one is you have to run across this, like, really long bridge that has no railings and people fall off immediately. The second challenge is called the gauntlet. And it is. Apparently, my friend Danielle told me this. I haven't fact checked it, so if it's not true, I'm so sorry, but apparently, in describing the Gauntlet, it's quite literally just an American Ninja wars course. Yeah.
- [18:22]
B
Yes.
- [18:22]
C
Yeah, it is. Also, though. So the first test that you have to cross, sort of rickety rope ladder over a endless crevasse to get to school. I feel like that would so be my story. I would be like, all right, time to start my adult life.
- [18:50]
A
Exactly. I also would have fallen off immediately. Also because you're holding a huge pack on your bag as you're walking across this parapet or whatever. So this is the moment. As soon as our hero, Violet, walks across this parapet, she meets the love of her life, who we don't know is the love of her life, but obviously is Zaden Reorses, who is her born enemy because her mother killed his father.
- [19:12]
C
I think it's Zaden Reardon.
- [19:14]
A
Okay.
- [19:14]
B
Yeah.
- [19:15]
C
Because I will say a lot of the Resistance characters have, like, vaguely Celtic names. They reminded me of, like, the. Like, the ira.
- [19:25]
B
I want to be clear that none of us know what this man's last name is. And Alex just offered to look it up, and I said it wasn't important. So don't be mad at us. We don't care.
- [19:34]
A
And I think you're right. All we need to know is that his name is Zayden and it's spelled X a D, E, N, which tells you everything you need to know about him.
- [19:40]
C
This is X, X, X, A, D, E, N.
- [19:45]
A
Exactly. And he hates her because her mother has killed his father. Because, I mean, speaking of an uprising, There was an uprising at one point, for reasons that I don't think are ever fully explained as to why this section of the country decided to rebel. But the leaders of the rebellion were all killed, and then their children were branded by dragons, and then they have to go into the Dragon Academy to either die or become Dragon Riders to prove their loyalty to the country. So that's how they punish dissent in this country.
- [20:18]
B
The thing that makes me feel crazy about this book in general is that every time you say something like that, I'm like, but that doesn't make sense with the rest of the book. Like, why would the dragons agree to brand people of the Resistance? All we've seen of dragons in the book is that they just, like, light people on fire and they die. Like, when did they become able to brand? Do you know?
- [20:38]
C
So having the second book, having read the sequel, but I've heard the third one is terrible, and so I haven't gotten around to it yet. Perhaps one day I'll be desperate enough to actually do It. But so the. Like, the Dragon Council. Listen, I am never more in my fucking element than when I can say, look, what you have to understand is that the Dragon Council don't say Dragon Council as a sovereign entity within. It's called. So the title of the series is like the Empyrean Chronicles, I think, and the Empyrean is the name of the dragon Council. And they do operate sort of in concert, but ultimately independently. How does this bore you, Kelsey? I love that you and I are so different and are yet able to love each other.
- [21:32]
B
I know.
- [21:32]
C
Across this difference.
- [21:34]
B
It's beautiful when you're saying those things. It just reminds me of, like, people. People who watch MSNBC on election night, where what's his face is like, this county, which is controlled by this. And I'm just like, I don't care, man. Like, just tell me what you think is gonna happen.
- [21:51]
C
But it's dragons.
- [21:54]
B
I don't care for them.
- [21:58]
A
Yeah. The dragons also enter kind of late in this novel. I think it's like, maybe. Speaking of late, what's actually late in this novel is the fucking.
- [22:06]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [22:07]
C
They enter late, but they enter sort of resoundingly with the twist that it turns out that you are psychically bonded to the dragon that picks you to ride them. And then those dragons also mate with each other. And so, yeah, there's a lot of meaning, you know, like, we couldn't see this coming from across a vast parapet that you have to use to get to your fucking college. Zaden's dragon and Violet's dragons be fucking. And through that psychic bond, it's sort of like. It's like an only one bed convention, but an only one dragon mating.
- [22:47]
A
Yes, yes. And they're also the most powerful dragons in the army, to be clear. Yeah. I think one thing that I think we need to make clear is that Violet is the definition of, I think, like a Mary sue character in that every single one of her flaws just ends up being her strength. In that she has, again, Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which is, like, makes your ligaments weird and fucked up, which makes her unable to do most of the things that she should be able to do as a dragon rider. But nevertheless, she overcomes every single time and ends up becoming her strength because she poisons all of her opponents. She knows how to throw a dagger. She rises to the point that Zayden starts referring to her as violence as a nickname, which is the point in this novel where I started crashing out a little bit.
- [23:33]
C
Well, it was very. So I Like, to keep track of in action movies when they cast, like, a very frail woman as sort of, like, assassin, you know, it's like the Gal Gadot thing. Yes. Who is problematic for many other reasons. But. Yeah. So, like, one of her, it turns out, like, she can't fight, but because she's constantly in pain, she's just able to, like, take a blow in a. In a physical fight.
- [24:03]
A
Like.
- [24:03]
C
Like, her opponents can't figure out because she's just so used to being in pain that she's able to turn this to her advantage. And, yeah, she was supposed to be a scribe, so she's, like, smarter than everybody. So she figures out that, like, book learning can defeat, you know, a large, muscular opponent, which, as a book learner, I can tell you, in my experience. No, doesn't help.
- [24:29]
A
Yeah. Also, everyone is trying to kill her, but no one succeeds, which I think is really. Again, you've raised a very important point of this novel, which I think is the thing that interests me about the difference between romance and Romantasy, which is romance. There's a defined narrative arc. It has a happy ending. That's the entire. With Romantasy over a series of five books, it's hard to draw out narrative tension if you know that the person at the beginning of the novel is going to live through everything. It's like, okay, well, how important can any of this be, really?
- [25:01]
C
Well, so what she did in this first novel, which is also sort of a classic romance thing, is that she did introduce the possibility of a love triangle. Right. There was the other guy who was her childhood friend Dane. Dane, who's like, the son of her mom's closest sister, second to me, second year or something, who she thought, you know, that she had, like, carried this torch for. For years. And he was incredibly protective in, you know, that classic way of like, oh, it turns out he's just babying her. You know, he wants to be her father and Zaden wants to be her daddy.
- [25:37]
B
Yeah.
- [25:38]
A
Wow.
- [25:42]
B
Say that. One thing I do really have to hand to her is that Rebecca Yarros clearly just took a list of tropes and then was like, I can put them all in there. Watch me. I will. And I have to hand it to her on that.
- [25:54]
C
Right.
- [25:55]
B
Like, it's like, love triangle, childhood crush, evil man, mating kink. Right. Like, it's just like all of them. And that is fun in a way.
- [26:05]
A
Enemies to lovers.
- [26:07]
B
Enemies to lovers. Family feud.
- [26:09]
A
Mean mommy, mean mommy. Sibling dynamics. Yeah. I think Rebecca can get many points from me. I mean, I Quite frankly respect anyone who can write an entire novel, let alone three, because I have many ideas and yet I will not write any of the transitory scenes that get you from Idea Idea and neither will Rebecca. Because as soon as the scene ends. As soon as the scene ends, I got to the point, especially listening to the audiobook, I got to the point where I think maybe a graph before a chapter ended, I was like, next chapter's coming up. I can tell because she's like, and this is how this action filled scene ended in next action filled scene. And I was like, you know what? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I don't know. All. No filler.
- [26:59]
B
We're literally all just gimme da garbage about this book.
- [27:02]
C
I mean it does have. In that sense, it's a very like TikTok friendly, quick cut kind of narrative aesthetic.
- [27:10]
A
Yeah, it is very. It's ripe for adaptation in a way that as soon as I started reading it I was like, so who bought the rights to this? And the answer is Amazon.
- [27:20]
B
Yeah, can I bring us back to the fucking, please?
- [27:24]
C
I was just about to say the question with the adaptation though is like, how nerdy are they going to make?
- [27:29]
A
They're going to get kinky.
- [27:30]
C
So Amazon is sexless.
- [27:31]
B
I want to start with the first scene in which they are, I don't know, kissing physically intimate at all. And the whole reason that they even get together, her and the forbidden one, is that their dragons are fucking and it's hard for them to block that out. And I was just like this. I like, this is crazy. Like, like you're. Oh, you've become incredibly horny because you're. Your dragon is having sex and you can't figure out how to separate his horny from your horny. Like, okay, great, I'm locked in. Sure.
- [28:06]
A
That was a beautiful device. I do. I was talking to one of our colleagues about this and I was like, I'm not gonna lie. Going into this hearing Romantasy and dragons, I was like, well, you assume they.
- [28:16]
C
Fuck the dragons, right?
- [28:17]
B
Yeah, I also assumed that.
- [28:18]
A
I mean, at the very least I assumed I would be reading some kind of monster smut. I didn't. I was like, the logistics of a human fucking a dragon sounds very complicated. So I was like, maybe because they're maid of dragons, we'll get some insight into that. And the answer is no. It's all about the human to human contact, which is kind of disappointing. But we've skipped a few scenes of how Violet and Zaden get together throughout this entire trial and tribulation that she goes through. Again, enemies to lovers. Very standard fare of Violet is slowly figuring out that this person who is her lifelong family enemy is actually a good guy. And actually, maybe her mom is the one who's wrong. And actually, maybe the government is keeping secrets from them. And actually, maybe everything isn't as it seems.
- [29:04]
C
Listen, who among us has not experienced a political awakening because of a hot guy?
- [29:10]
B
Who among us hasn't gone to college and been like, wait, been like, wait a minute.
- [29:14]
C
The government is lying to me.
- [29:17]
A
But that hot man never would.
- [29:20]
B
He's so tall.
- [29:21]
A
He's so tall and beautiful. Yes, exactly. And then Violet goes through the whole gauntlet process of bonding to a dragon, and Zaden is like, I want to save from these people who are trying to kill her. And Violet has to go up against three other people because she wants to save a tiny golden dragon who is a huge liability to the rest of the squad but is so beautiful and perfect. And who is that an analogy for? Who could it possibly be? And Violet's like, I will defend this tiny golden dragon to my death, which allows her to bond with the larger, more powerful dragon who's like. Like, I. Like. I like your spunk, kid. Like, I like your moxie. Yeah.
- [30:04]
B
The.
- [30:04]
C
The idea that in this, like, relentlessly militaristic society, like, actually showing honor and nobility will serve you well, right?
- [30:12]
B
It's incredibly funny that, like, the whole book, she keeps making the same. Well, she's constantly making the same points over and over again. But one of the points she's making over and over again is that, like, honor is irrelevant here, right? Like, you can do whatever you want at any time. The only thing that matters is the quote unquote codex, which is like a book of rules, but the book of rules seems to only be. You can't kill each other when they're sleeping. That's it. That's the only rule that matters. All the other ones are irrelevant. You can just stab people while you're wrestling. That's fine. And then the dragons are like, no, we value honor. That's what we care about.
- [30:43]
C
Well, I mean, this does feel like a good lesson in how sort of inculcating young people into a violent ideology works, right? Is that young. You pit them against each other. You tell them that there is such a thing as rules of engagement. And then outside of that, anything is allowable. And then you also get them to think that concepts like honor and courage and nobility, like, entail in what they're doing. And meanwhile, you're Sending them out to slaughter innocence on your behalf. Yes.
- [31:14]
B
And that's beautiful.
- [31:15]
A
Yeah. The tensions between what morals the leaders of this military society are actually valuing is very not clear. Because on one level, they're like, you can kill anyone you want during training, but the moment that you're out of training, that's your best friend. And it's like, I was trying to murder him two days ago, and you want me to protect him now.
- [31:36]
C
Well, but this is where the background of being somebody who writes. Being somebody who writes military romance, where it's like, oh. What you have to understand is that even when the system goes wrong, there are good people who are caught up in the system who want to make it right.
- [31:51]
A
One good apple, like Violet, the best apple. So the dragon that Violet ends up pairing with, well, actually, she pairs with two, which has never happened in the history of dragons ever.
- [32:06]
C
First time threesome.
- [32:07]
A
Yeah, it's really like, no. No threesome.
- [32:11]
B
Threesome. Forbidden for no reason at all.
- [32:14]
A
And then she bonds with these two dragons. One of them is mated to Zayden's dragon, which means maid dragons cannot be apart from each other for longer than four or five days. So that means that Zaden and Violet, for the rest of their careers are gonna be next to each other. And so this means Zaden is like, we can't fuck. It would be a mistake. And Violet is like, are you sure? Are you sure about that?
- [32:38]
B
As soon as that plot point came up that was like, bonded dragons can't be apart for more than four or five days. I was like, is this a Christian book? I was like, wait a second.
- [32:50]
C
Is this a Christian book?
- [32:51]
B
And then, you know what happened? I went to the acknowledgments, and the first line is like, I want to thank our Heavenly Father. And I was like, I fucking called it.
- [32:57]
C
Absolutely called it. So much romance and so much romantasy is inherently Christian, oftentimes specifically Mormon.
- [33:07]
B
But I saw all of that before I got to, like, the big sex scene. So I was like, wait, our Heavenly Father, we're thanking for this? Well, for this.
- [33:17]
C
We're thinking for this because it's like. It's spicy, but it's spice in service to, like, eternal pairing, right? Like, this is. It always cashes out as this kind of, like, faded. We will be together forever, right? And often there's, like, this device that comes in that assuages, like, a lot of our anxieties about contemporary dating, right? So our, like, our. Our mate, our dragons are mated, and therefore we are somehow also meant to be together in a court of thorn and roses. It's, you know, we are. We're. We're mates. There's something about being like a Fae as opposed to being a human man that says, like, no, once I have, like, locked into you, you, that's it. I know. You don't have to have any anxiety about me ghosting you or, like, not returning your texts or being ambivalent like it is. There's no sense of, like, ambiguity about these relationships. They are overwhelming you. Like, there's no sense resisting because this is fate intervening in your life and you are going to be together forever. And so if you do have, you know, a. Some premarital sex, that can probably be. Probably, like, you know, be swept up under the fact that you, you know, the two of you have been, like, overwhelmed by some sort of higher power.
- [34:38]
B
Right. I think what I'm saying is, like, you've got to hand it to her a little bit where I'm like, if this is propaganda for Christianity, like, I tip my hat to that, babe. Like, incredible work.
- [34:51]
A
I also had the moment of being like, is this Mormon? And I don't think Rebecca Yarros is specifically Mormon, though it is giving shades of Twilight. I think the thing that made it feel very similar to Twilight is the way that the female man character is the one who's really propelling this relationship of being like, the man is the one who's like, no, we must be logical and we must not fuck, and it wouldn't make any sense and I don't want to hurt you. And then she's like, well, actually, as a woman who has agency, as a woman who has power over her body, as a woman who's in control, I'm the one who's saying, I want this and I know you want me, so fuck that. And it's like, all right, yeah, sure, why not?
- [35:36]
C
But then it always turns out that he's resisting because he is worried about being so overcome by emotion. Right? It's not that he's resisting because he's ambivalent in any way. It's that he knows that he, like, loves you so much that were he to just get, like, one little sniff, it would be over for him.
- [35:57]
B
I'm just realizing that that's actually the fantasy part of this book.
- [36:00]
C
This is the fantasy part of this book. The fantasy is not the dragons. The fantasy is that you will have a man who is, like, enamored of you, that he realizes it will lead him to ruination if he got even slightly close to be fucking clear.
- [36:17]
B
Textually, it will lead him to death.
- [36:20]
C
Yes. Yeah. And yet unto death. Every week on the Moth podcast, you'll.
- [36:34]
B
Hear true stories from some of the.
- [36:36]
C
Funniest and most fascinating people in the world. I had a deeply meaningful experience, something so real that I knew it was going to shape who I was to become for the rest of my life.
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B
Life.
- [36:46]
C
I saw the Spice Girls on MTV to hear true stories from actors to astronauts to people just like you. Follow and listen to the Moth on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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B
This show is supported by Odoo.
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Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O O dot com. I swear to God. Winter arrived in New York overnight. Like one day. It was basically the end of the summer and now it is actually cold outside. I don't know how that happened and I feel like I'm not prepared for it. I still haven't even taken my winter clothes down. My home is not winterproof. That's why I am so excited to be partnering with Wayfair. Wayfair helps you get everything from bedding and linens to decor for every room in your house. Super. Super. I just bought multiple sets of curtains from my bedroom from Wayfair because I realized that part of the reason my room was so cold is because I was not actually covering the windows. Who knew? So now I got these lovely heavy blackout curtains in this gorgeous like gray blue linen. I'm so excited to hang them with the toolkit that I also got from Wayfair. Wayfair is your one stop shop for everything you need this holiday season. You can get last minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones and decor to celebrate the holidays. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home AG1 is the daily health drink that combines your multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants into one simple green scoop. It's one of the easiest things you can do to support your body every day. We are right smack dab in the middle of production for season nine and we'll be producing through January, which means that I am just looking for convenience at this point. I am trying to eat the quickest I've ever eaten in my entire life because I have gossip to write. That's why I love AG1. It is one scoop in a big glass of water and it is the first thing I do every single day. And I don't have to think about anything else. I don't have to think about any other vitamins I need to take or probiotics, whatever it is all in there. AG1 has their best offer ever. Head to drinkag1.com normalgossip to get a free welcome kit, a morning person hat, vitamin D3 and K2, an AG1 flavor sampler and you'll get to try their new sleep supplement AGZ for free. That's $126 in free gifts for new subscribers@drinkag1.com normalgossip I love a little treat like love a little treat. And I'm not just talking about like a pastry. I'm talking about those little moments of luxury that you can introduce into your life that also work and also don't break the bank. That's why I love osea's Algae Body Butter. It is R and ultra nourishing and it leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth. It's made with undaria, seaweed, shea butter and ceramides and it delivers up to 72 hours of hydration. It's clinically shown to improve texture and firmness after four weeks. But what I love the most about this body butter is how good it smells. I love oranges like it is a well known fact. I literally have oranges tattooed on my body. I love oranges and I was so excited when I opened this body butter because I immediately smelled these notes of mango and mandarin. And then I checked the website and it turns out my little nose was correct. I love the way this smells. I also love that it doesn't irritate my skin. I have really sensitive skin and I'm actually really sensitive to fragrance. But whatever OSEA is doing is really working for me and I feel so soft. Experience body care from OSEA that actually delivers visible results results. And right now we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10% off your first order sitewide with code gossiposeamalibu.com that's O S E A malibu.com code gossip. One of the Things we haven't mentioned is that once you're attached to a dragon, you can channel their power, which means that they all have these different signet powers. And Zaden's is obviously controlling Shadows because he's Zaden. And then Violet's is controlling lightning, which no one has done for a hundred years. And it's like, well, yeah, fucking course. But how this comes up is that there are moments where they're fucking. Where she literally blows out windows because of her lightning power. Or people are like, there was a weird storm, like, two miles away from here in a forest. And it's like, oh, that was me coming five times.
- [42:29]
C
And yet that lightning is brought down by vaginal penetration. That lighting is brought down by a dick in a pussy. You come five times, which is, again, like the Mormon sort of underlay of all of these books is that the height of depravity that they can imagine is a dick and a pussy. Right. That is, like. That is as depraved.
- [42:55]
B
Yeah.
- [42:55]
C
That is as disgusting as it gets. And I read so many of these, and I'm just like. I'm begging you, like, have somebody lick an armpit. Like, something. Just one thing, please. Can I just get, like, a foot in a mouth? Can I get something?
- [43:12]
A
Can I get a.
- [43:12]
C
But let's see. That these people are like some other form of perverse. Other than, like, the least perverse thing that you can be a pervert about, which is dick in a vagina.
- [43:25]
B
He gives her oral sex.
- [43:28]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [43:29]
C
Okay.
- [43:29]
A
He looks to get a vagina. What kind of other perversion are you talking about?
- [43:36]
C
I want them to fuck the dragons. Same.
- [43:40]
A
I was gonna say, I find it funny that this warring society that has no indoor plumbing, seemingly, like, the logistics of where we are in history are not explained at all. Because they're in a castle. No one talks about where the toilet is at or whether or not they're doing chamber.
- [43:54]
B
They do have electricity.
- [43:55]
A
Yeah, they do have. But they have mage lights. But they also have some kind of, like, anti fertility drug. And I'm like, all right, y' all have gotten to the point of birth control. Do you have vibrators? What's going on here? Is there a vibrating crystal? What's going on here?
- [44:10]
B
Okay, can I just say something? I don't need to be in the mic.
- [44:15]
C
Do it.
- [44:16]
B
At one point, somebody says, for the win. And that I wanted to just, like, tear the book in half. Because, like, that is an Internet phrase.
- [44:25]
A
Yes, yes. You have to win. No, that was your queen, Alex. I had to chime in at that point. But that was the moment where I texted my friend and I was just like, why is this feudal society that's been at war for 400 years using the phrase for the win? And she was like, that's fourth wing, baby. And I saw then. You're so right. It is worthwhile.
- [44:52]
B
It's really hard for me to move.
- [44:53]
C
On from that because I do not catch this.
- [44:56]
A
So.
- [44:57]
C
Because, you know, to me, I'm Shannon a lot, because this is so prevalent in romantasy is that they will like pepper it with these like very contemporary idioms in a way that like, I have just learned to gloss over at this point. Right. The big one that I. The one that I do notice is you'll get like a paragraph of text about the physical properties of a man and then you'll get he period was period, so period hot, period. And it's like they're typing it out like it's a Tumblr post. Like they are doing the sort of like, you know, grammatical emphasis thing. And I'm like, I just. Oh, okay, well, good luck with your cauldron that you're going to next.
- [45:44]
B
I want to go back to the kinks for just one second. So all of these books are very clear about why they're introducing things, right? Like, nothing is introduced that is not immediately clear what it will become. It's all very transparent, which, you know what, fine, I understand this. But then they introduce the fact that her dragon is wearing a saddle. And I was like, this must be a kink. I was like, it must be coming. But no, that was the one time I thought we were going to get a little bit of something.
- [46:09]
C
No, that's just because her joints are bad and so she needs to be last dragon. Listen, we've still got. This is a five book series, so it could become a cake at some point. This, the saddle could be the Chekhov's gun of fourth wing sex scenes.
- [46:24]
B
To be clear, I won't be reading the next four books, so I'm gonna need someone to tell me whether or not there's a saddle sex scene.
- [46:30]
A
I feel like this is a good place to do a meta commentary of what was. Let's do some roses and thorns.
- [46:37]
C
Oh, no.
- [46:39]
A
Because I feel like we maybe should the actual end of this book. Cause there's a really one thing I always respect about romance that is multiple books, is that the cliffhanger every single time really gets you. Where I'm like, you know what if I was really invested in this Plot line. I would immediately buy this book. It worked with me with the Ferrante novels. Yeah. Which is a complete.
- [47:01]
C
Maybe the first time in history that somebody has brought up fortune and the nature Neapolitan quartet.
- [47:07]
B
If you think about it though, in a way, the Neapolitan novels are also a romantasy and they are about having a best life.
- [47:13]
A
Well, it's a historical romance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But so we're not gonna spoil the end because there's some major character death, which I appreciate in a romance novel.
- [47:24]
C
I do like that they're willing to kill people.
- [47:25]
A
I do too. And they started from the beginning. Literally from the moment they're running across the parapet, someone dies immediately. And I was like, you know what? Hell yeah, Rebecca, let me know. People will die in this novel. I appreciate that.
- [47:35]
B
Wait, that does remind me that the novel has a content warning at the front of it.
- [47:39]
A
Does it?
- [47:40]
B
Did your copies have this?
- [47:41]
C
I do not remember.
- [47:41]
A
I don't remember.
- [47:42]
B
My copy of 4th Wing had like a block of text before the dedication that was like, FYI, people are going to die and fuck. But longer. And I was like, wow, I really could have seen that one coming. But thank you. Question mark.
- [47:58]
C
Once again, you know, were I like a 12 year old reader, I'd be like, thank you. Definitely gonna check this book out of the library.
- [48:07]
A
It really reminds me of the conventions of fanfiction. Like, that reminds me of what you put at the top of like an AO3 fanfiction story where it's major character death. Or the really fucked up one, which is Dead dove do not eat. Which is. You just don't. Yeah, I don't.
- [48:21]
B
Do not enter that door.
- [48:22]
C
I am making a face right now which our listeners can't see.
- [48:26]
A
Well, I can't tell you exactly what it refers to. I know it references a specific fanfiction, but if you see dead dove do not eat on a fanfiction, there's something extremely fucked up in it. Like, not even in the way of like, oh, you know, like non consensual sex. That is something people will tag or like rape, et cetera. Dead dove do not eat usually means something that you will never forget.
- [48:50]
B
That's not your business.
- [48:51]
A
That's not unless you want to make it your business.
- [48:53]
C
Okay.
- [48:53]
B
And then it will be your business forever.
- [48:55]
C
And because of the way my brain works, I'm not a fan fiction reader, but I am going to specifically search out. I'm hoping that we will continue to drink for long enough that that phrase will be wiped from my brain and I can save myself.
- [49:13]
A
No. Somebody is gonna listen to this and just go to the dead dove, do not eat, tag on AO3 and suffer a lot, and that person is going to be me. I will not be held liable for anything that happens after this episode. I'm telling you, it literally says, dead dove, do not eat. I don't know what else to tell.
- [49:29]
B
Okay, sorry. You were talking about how we're not gonna ruin the ending.
- [49:32]
A
Yes. Okay. And I was also saying we should do roses and thorns of this entire experience. Kelsey, I want you to go first because you texted me when you started reading this, which is, I started reading the first page and I wanna shoot myself. Yeah.
- [49:47]
B
I also texted Brandi that because I was like.
- [49:49]
C
I did that text as well.
- [49:50]
B
I was like, you two are complicit in my deaf potentially, and you should know. Okay. My rose is that I do think the first big sex scene was pretty good. I was like, okay, all right, sure. Like, good sex scene. I'll hand it to you. I like it. My thorn is everything else in the. I think that, like, there were so many parts of this book that I really wanted to like and just couldn't because I kept getting, like, yanked out of it by the narration. And, like, that's maybe a me problem, genuinely. But the book is in first person, and the thing that is repeated the most is her being like, I feel scared. I feel like I can't do it. And I'm like, I don't know that that's really how people think. And so that is my thorn, I think.
- [50:41]
C
Am I to understand that roses are what I like and thorns are what I correct. My rose is that I read it in a day, and I read so much romantasy that I will just. I'll get 40 or 50 or 60 or sometimes 80% of the way through and be like, nope, I've reached. Like, I can't finish this. I don't. It's too bad. I'm going to feel bad about myself if I continue to read one more page about this. And so it was, like, engaging enough that I read it in a day. And again, I got that, you know, brain tickling sensation that I enjoy so much. So that was my rose. My thorn is. Yeah, I guess most. Most of the rest of it. I.
- [51:28]
B
To be clear, I will be recommending this book to people. Like, even though I'm like, it's garbage. I didn't like it. I don't think it's successful at the things I wanted it to Do. I'm also like, if you want to read a book in the. In a day on the beach, so there are there.
- [51:44]
C
I would recommend it as. As a reading experience. I would not recommend it as a book. And these are.
- [51:53]
A
Fuck, yeah.
- [51:58]
B
No, same.
- [51:59]
C
These are potentially two different categories for me.
- [52:04]
A
I do think that mine follows up on that, which is that my rhythms is that this is the first time I've understood the appeal of audiobooks.
- [52:12]
C
Oh, yeah, you have to speak on this because the audiobook, the narrator does dragon voice.
- [52:18]
A
Right.
- [52:18]
B
I want to confess that I also listened to part of the audiobook because I had to drive here to Ocean City, which is like a three hour drive. And so I was like, Well, I have 100 pages left of this book. I'll simply put it on. And so I also experienced audiobooks for one of the first times.
- [52:32]
C
Did you experience dragon voice? Did I? I have not experienced this and I feel like I'm missing out voice acting.
- [52:38]
A
Literally voice acting. I mean, I will say it to the point of the quality of the prose. I was finding it hard as I was reading it to honestly not start zoning out in the middle of a sentence because I was like, I know where this is going, but when it's being read to you at 1.2x speed and you're playing a little phone game at the same time, optimal reading experience.
- [53:05]
C
Again, lots of reading experience versus a book.
- [53:09]
A
But also the audiobook was like, I really respect people who can do that because. Because the narrator is going from being like. And then he plunged his hard member into me. And then the next thing is you hear the dragon being like, control yourself.
- [53:34]
B
What's also funny about the dragon voice? Like, I thought this voice actor was honestly quite good.
- [53:40]
C
But the thing that's the funniest about.
- [53:42]
B
It is she didn't do voices for any of the characters.
- [53:47]
A
No, exactly. So you had no idea who was really talking to each other until there was a dragon. Exactly. You knew what a dragon was talking about and you knew when a dragon was talking. But specifically only one of the dragons, specifically Taryn, who is Violet's dragon, who is like the biggest, baddest dragon of them all. But he has this. As soon as you started speaking, I was like, oh, that's Taryn. That's him. That's him. So that's my rose. Which is that I finally understood the appeal of audiobooks, which I'm like, oh, it's nice to be able to read a book while doing other things. She's doing air quotes for read a Book. Not that audiobooks aren't reading a book, but sometimes I've listened to In Cold Blood on audiobook, and that was not something where I was like, I'm playing a phone game. I maybe wash a dish. But I was like, I kind of need to pay attention to what's happening here.
- [54:35]
C
I do feel like we really missed a trick just technologically that we couldn't record Truman Capote reading In Cold Blood.
- [54:45]
A
Mandy, that would have been. Been incredible.
- [54:47]
B
Come on.
- [54:48]
A
Cause the narrator of that audiobook is kind of trying to do, like, a Truman Capote esque thing. Not like full. Full sin, but very much like, trying to be kind of like a mid Atlantic accent in a way where I'm like, you know what? All right, sure. Whatever.
- [55:04]
B
An audiobook that I have listened to before, always at the beach, is Cole Kidman read the Waves, the Virginia Woolf book. And she does this, like, old English accent the whole time. And I was just like, that's beautiful to me.
- [55:16]
C
Congratulations. They put in all effort.
- [55:18]
A
Yeah, I love it too. So, yeah, audiobooks. A. That's pyros. My thorn is that this was the first book where I think I actively was like, I can't read this. I need this to be read to me at a faster pace than my brain can actually go.
- [55:37]
C
See, I am.
- [55:39]
B
You're built different.
- [55:40]
C
I'm so happy for the two of you that, like, the floor of your shame is so much higher than the floor of my shame. I want to be clear.
- [55:50]
B
I think I was really, really in trouble when I started this book, because the book I read before this was John Steinbeck's east of Eden. And I read it for the first time, and I was like, saluting American literature. Like, I was like, wow, we used to be a country.
- [56:03]
C
Like, this book rules.
- [56:04]
B
And then I came straight into Fourth Wing.
- [56:06]
C
I was in a graduate program for English literature.
- [56:10]
B
I know, I know. I'm saying, I think that the direct juxtaposition of the two did not do.
- [56:16]
C
Fourth Wing any favors.
- [56:18]
A
Also, to be clear, I read fan fiction. I think what I'm not used to is, like, fanfiction is straight to the plot. There's no filler. There's no world building because you're already in a world that you understand. And so I think the combination of, I think we all agree not great world building with the actual parts that I wanted to get to. I'm like, you're gonna explain things to me, and I'm gonna be like, that doesn't make sense. And that's gonna wash over me. Cause none of that. Actually, I will read some terrible things. Brandi, Don't. Don't get it twisted.
- [56:48]
C
Don't control yourself.
- [56:52]
A
Exactly. Oh, this was beautiful. This was beautiful. Friends.
- [57:03]
B
We drank a whole bottle of wine.
- [57:05]
A
We do.
- [57:05]
B
We respect. We let people enjoy things. If you liked the book, good for you. We also liked it in our own special and beautiful and evil ways and.
- [57:13]
A
We will be recommending it.
- [57:14]
C
Do yell at me for my opinion about forthwith.
- [57:19]
A
Honestly, please yell at me for my opinion on fourth. Come at me. I've read trash that none of you people can even begin to understand. This is nothing. I am a connoisseur of trash. All right?
- [57:31]
C
You can send me emails, but I won't read them because I'm too busy reading about Minotaur milking.
- [57:41]
B
And the way that, you know that we all read garbage is that we knew what she was talking about.
- [57:47]
A
I didn't need any explanation. Kelsey, Brandy, thank you so much for joining me. This was so fun.
- [57:54]
C
I love you.
- [57:56]
B
Thank you for having us.
- [57:57]
A
Thank you Alex. Thank you, Alex for the win. Thank you so much for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, that email is normal gossipefector.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 GOSSIP. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or friend of a friend@supportnormalgossip.com you can follow the show on Instagram and tick tock at Normal Normal Gossip. Normal Gossip is hosted by me, Rachel Hampton. Our lead producer is Sierra Spragley Ricks. Our subscriber episodes are produced by J. Tol Vieira. The co creators and dowager queens of Normal Gossip are Alex Dujong, Laughlin and Kelsey McKinney. Defector's project editor is Justin Ellis. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defectors business guys. Alex Sujong Laughlin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Ley is our editor in chief. Thanks to the rest of the Defector staff, Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber based media company and Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. Please remember you did not hear this from me.
- [59:28]
C
Radiotopia from prx.