Episode 43 - Monsters and Monstress

Hi everyone, in this episode Kadiah takes over and has us read a totally not-problematic book.  This episode is a little, please listen to content warnings. 

We Discuss Ice Planet Barbarians Chapter 1 by Ruby Dixon. Content warning for discussions of sexual assault and consent. 

We also discuss Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. 

Please Send Questions and Feedback to Any of the following:

Bluesky: @comicbooksbeyond.bsky.social
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Check us out on Youtube as well!

Comic Books Beyond would like to thank:  The Crew of the Talking Comics Podcast, Brandon McNulty, Lisa and Brad from Comic Book Couples Counseling, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley and Jimmy Gaspero. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi everyone and welcome to the Beyond section of the Comics Book Beyond podcast. My name is Kadia, and my husband said I could take over his podcast and talk about anything I want. So naturally I want to talk about monster smut. Oh, by the way, this podcast is aimed at adults. So if you're not 18 enough to ride, please come back when you're a legal adult. Also, my husband is here. Do you want to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Uh, I'm Vic. I also sometimes go by Adam on this show. Uh, but I'm really happy because my adorable and loving and very attractive and I married too far up wife is with me. So what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

So we're talking about monsters and monsters. My pick monsters. So I pick some monster smud. Probably the most popular one I could think of was Ice Planet Barbarian. So that's why I picked it.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

This is the most popular one. This is what people this is like the Stephen King of the Monster Smut genre. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Argue. And I've read these books. I read many of them. Uh fun trivia game that I have in a little bit. Spoilers for it. Um, but I read a bunch of them and yeah, read a bunch of these books, and I so I have some enjoyment of them, but they are not the best written of any Monster Smut that I have had.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

But they're they're the most popular ones, so you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yes, so I would call them like the James Patterson of Monster Smut, not the Stephen King.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Monster Smut is definitely a legit thing you can read. I am not putting it down, but if anyone wants to guess, I did not like this book very much. I only read the first chapter. I will read the rest though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

All right. So I move on to disclaimers. I'm actually trying to look up the trigger warnings for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

There might be more than than what's in text in the book. This one is I am genuinely surprised you got as far into the series as you did. Like, I know you pretty darn well.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Of all the books, of all the books, this is the worst written one, and you'll see why it's not my favorite for monster smut, but I was going with popularity.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

So I promise I will read another monster book. I will I will just do that.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

So trigger warnings. The biggest one is rape. For this first chapter, the biggest one is rape. There is some it I want to call it light breeding kink in the later book, but for this one, it's mostly that's the only trigger warning.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

I mean, there's also kidnapping and confinement. I can see how that could bother some people, and um That's true.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

That's true. So, story recap as short as I possibly can. We are introduced to Georgie, the main character, and she is kidnapped in the middle of the night. I guess I should say abducted by aliens, not kidnapped. So it is kidnapping. And during her abduction, she is not the only female human that is abducted. They are basically tortured and confined in the ship. There is a gang rape scene, and then they crash land on a planet, and then Georgie goes out to explore not Hoth because it's uh that's the best that the author could have came up with to name it, not Hoth.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah, they are very explicitly saying this is not Hoth. I promise you this is isn't Hoth. Like they say, it's not Hoth. I don't want to say it's Hoth anymore.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

But while she's exploring, she gets trapped in a snare trap and faints in fear. And then when she is awoken, there is an alien that is going down on her. She even said in the book, she's like, I should be saying this, but nope, I'm consenting. She just didn't tell him she's consenting.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

He she she she's not misrepresenting, she did say she does like this, but then she flat out says, Oh god, he's flipping me over. I don't like this, and that's how the chapter ends. And that is 20% of the book, according to Mike Kindle. Uh, her her her and this was a lot of reading. The first chapter was 20% of the book. It was a lot like uh this one, it should have been like three, four chapters, in all honesty. Because this was like prologue chapter one up to an act break. That's what this feels like. And saying it's poorly written is is but oh boy. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

So how many do you think there are?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

There's there's like 20 of these. 21. There's yeah, there's 21 of these. So, like, didn't you tell me a while ago that these things, like the reason people like these, that they're popular with women, is that uh the monsters are a metaphor for um, you know, this is actually talking about consent and how it's supposed to be, you know, a lot more talked about and how like the monsters I say this is not the best representation because the majority of it is like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

There's also something that I noticed that you won't notice because you don't read enough romance tropes to know. But this is a faded mate romance trope where the thing he was talking about, his que and the resonating. It's basically fate is saying that they're supposed to be together. So in his mind, there is no sexual assault because why would she not love him?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Basically, yeah, a lot of rape apologists probably were using that one throughout the years, I'm gonna assume.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, but that uh faded mate is a very uh big romanticy trope.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah, yeah. I I guarantee that there's a lot of pieces of shit in this world who have just definitely twisted those words.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

It's one of my least favorite tropes, so I'm not saying, but I noticed I was like, oh, so that's why she didn't. And honestly, later in the books, I think she took to heart some of the criticisms of this, and that's when she started being very like sent forward.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

The by she you mean the author, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yes, the author, Ruby Dixon.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yeah, so like I I'm gonna walk back a few things a little bit here, and it's this isn't as graphic as it could be. This, but I I am not going to sugarcoat how awful, disgusting, vile rape is. Like it actually turns my stomach thinking about this. But um, you know, that something good can come out of something awful. Let's say that. And I'm not saying something good comes out of rape. I'm saying this is a bad book. I'm saying better books can come out of this if that writer can take those criticisms and make them into something better.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

I also do believe that she very makes her point that she is not okay with moving forward in the next like three paragraphs, and he stopped.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Gotcha. So, like in the next chapter, I would get some relief.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, you would it's not like it's going to be a consensual non-consent scene.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

It is gotcha. I I I I was not sure if we were talking about consensual non-consent or you know, because it's just kind of a weird fantasy thing. And like I I I I put myself in that scenario, and like, okay, something feeling great is something feeling great, but someone flipping me over to do something else. I'm like, uh, this is this is really, really messed up. I mean, just the fact like you you get mad when I walk up and I lick your arm because I want to annoy you. But um sometimes. Yeah, I I but I mean, my most of my day is finding ways to annoy you. So of course. Give me give me why you continued reading, because I am genuinely surprised you got past the first assault scene.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

For me, I think because it wasn't graphic, it was literally just her basically saying, and this is happening. If it was graphic, I would have stopped. I there wouldn't have been a way.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

I I recently read a book called Gone to See the River Man and Along the River of Flesh, where there was a character who was a rapist in it. But the reason we were okay, or I was okay with it, was because the author said he is a raping scumbag. They did not sit around the author's Christopher Triana, uh, and they did not sit around describing the sexual assault. They don't go into high detail here, but you get enough detail to paint a picture like it is actually happening in the present. That's what I think freaked me out and was like.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I wonder if maybe that's some of it too. The whole you just said enough to paint a picture. Since I don't see pictures, I just say, Oh, this is happening, and I move forward.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yeah. Uh so uh Cody is one of those people who don't see pictures when they think, and I am one of those people who do think see pictures when they think. Yes, those people are apparently different. I did not know this until like a year ago. Go back to listening to podcasts like a year ago, and everyone was talking about this. But yeah, like there is a picture painted here where like I could I knew what was happening, and I'm like, this is fucking awful. And like surrounding this awful, awful scene is uh the the writing is not very good. It's amateur at best, and I'm trying to be nice to this writer. I'm sure that she's a nice person and she's somewhat successful. Some of the writing style is what like high schoolers would write to describe things in very very passing ways. It's just weird, weird, weird.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So, and the reason when I read these books, I read them like people who watch reality television, like trashy reality TV. Like it's the same, I'm getting the same thing out of it. Just I guess a little bit of Schadenfreud out of it, just being like, oh, this is terrible, but it's easy and entertaining.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

That's totally fair. Like, you can read anything for anything you're like you'd like. Um, so does does the series like it's it sounds like you're saying that not only this book gets better, the rest of the series gets better. We are talking about, you know, someone's writing developing over time, uh, the the the writer gets better, and like the uh stuff around consent gets a lot less uh gray, I suppose is the proper terminology there.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

It gets much less, it's very moving forward, very like, are you okay with this type stuff?

SPEAKER_02 10:55

So can we talk about some of the characters a little bit? There's there's not much to say here because we don't we're we we don't want to spoil anything for you past the content warning stuff. Like if this is something you guys are interested in reading, we definitely encourage you to go read. We we're as long as you're 18 for the love of God, but we uh you know that this is this is definitely aimed at adults. There's uh there's a couple characters here. I think we had three named characters. We had Georgie, Liz, and Kira? Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Kira. And then you have Vectel. You just you only know his name because of the change in point of view.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Now, Vectel, uh, did that come did this book come out before or after Stranger Things is my next question.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Well, I think before.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Okay, gotcha. I though I I think that monster probably existed somewhere in like the DD lore before that.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Uh Vectna, yeah, Vect's been around since like the 80s.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Or is Vectel like a a play on the Bechtel test?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I don't know. I'm unsure.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

I don't think so, but I was I was just wondering, like, uh, because this type of the this type of literature is generally more marketed towards women, correct? Yes. Like not many dudes read fantasy in general in just these monster smut books. They're uh even more like aimed at women, from what I understand, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yeah. So we have our female main character, it's Georgie. Her main personality seems to be leader.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

She's the most she's the one who's we're willing to like step up and form plans. Like there was a plan to escape the prison they were in, and she's the one who goes out and explores the world where everybody else is too afraid to. That's basically her personality. I am the leader.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah, and so can I can I comment on one thing that kind of bothered me about the um writing style of this book in character? So the the thing that bothered me was we spent like a page and a half, two pages uh describing their life before the aliens, and they're basically describing nothing. Like she said, yep, I have an average job and an average life. Uh I work as a like McDonald's teller, and uh then I microwave some food. Now I'm abducted by aliens. We could have honestly cut that first part and just said, Well, I woke up on an alien spacecraft, and here I am. I bet you're wondering how I got here. Cause like adding that context kind of just it almost took me out of it. Because it also has to do with the way it was written. Like it it there's a lot of unnecessary words and a lot of weird ways to describe things. It was silly. So, what what else did you enjoy about this story? Um without spoiling, like, you can use stuff that I haven't read yet. So, like, try to convince me that I should keep going. I'm going to because I love you. And I did it's rare I just DNF a book. Like, I just I I almost always finish books, and this I could probably finish tonight if I wanted. I might, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

So one thing, and I'll say this not in not in like a super titillating manner, but it's refreshing to see and read things that are wit written for the woman's pleasure in mind and not the man's.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

I can totally see where you're coming from that.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah. So that's why it's interesting, and that's why like romance, like so much of romance novels is just the men making the women feel special. That's really what it comes down to. And so you're basically reading stories after stories after stories of that. And it feels nice. And like I have you who always makes me feel special, but and but getting to like read stories where it happens to other women instead of women being treated or treated like crap, or women being damsels in distress, or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

You know, it's it's funny. We were like driving in the car up today and we were talking about like some things women find attractive, and apparently it's a lot lower of a bar than I thought. Like having a car is apparently big bonus points, not treating them like garbage is a bonus point. Uh what's what were the other ones we you guys came up with? You you and Garnet were talking? What was it? Uh showering.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yes, showering is one.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Having minor ambitions and goals.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Do you do you really do you care what the goals are? Just as long like assuming they're not terrible.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

No, not not really. Like I've always said, like, if you wanted, if you you are someone who you always want to be financially independent. So it's not you were never going to be this, but say you wanted to just only do this podcast for a little while and see what happened of it. If as long as we had a plan and we were okay and that was your ambition, that'd be fine.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Now, this is a good time to announce that I really would like to start a Patreon at some point, or just some kind of monetary that doesn't change the quality or accessibility of this podcast. But I'm not, I'm not quitting my job. I will not do that. Uh, I I'm not gonna lie to anybody. I would love to just do podcasting comic books and uh journalism as my main job, but no, I mean, you even uh the the one of the reasons I think Cottie and I's relationship works as well as it does, uh, you know, not just because she's really hot, but uh also because and also really smart. Uh but also we are both um uh not necessarily financially conscious, but if either one of us lost our job with our quality of life, we could have almost zero adjustments and still be good for quite a while. And we we just we both work really hard on trying to uh be financially conscious and be responsible just to not put the other person in like some kind of a shithole scenario where apparently if if all I have to do is, you know, have a car keep showering and have minor ambitions, you know, I might start putting in a little less effort. I I don't know. Is that cool, hon?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

See, but then if you go back to bare minimum, I can't brag about you like I do. You don't you don't have to brag about me and you you shouldn't like But no, it's nice to get to brag when when women are saying, like, oh my husband didn't do this. I get to say, Oh, my husband cooked dinner and cleaned, and when I got home, everything was already done, and I got to just spend time with them. It was cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Uh, to be fair, you don't get to say that anymore. You get off work earlier than I do. So I don't actually clean anymore. I'm usually still working for like 10 minutes when you get home. So you you can't brag about that anyway.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Mm-hmm. I'm just realizing your typical is like the new reader-friendly scale. That's not really gonna work too well with a book.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Um, so I think we could still talk about the new reader-friendly, and we also wanted to do that other scale we talked about.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Do you want to introduce the new reader-friendly scale?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

I can't remember what the levels were.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Um, okay, so new reader-friendly scale. Uh we use this mostly for comic books. We're geared towards helping new readers try to find their way into comics. Uh, since people like numbers, I don't. Um, I do them for a living. I don't like numbers. I uh created a scale called the New Reader-Friendly Scale. One is the absolute easiest books to get into, five is the absolute hardest books to get into. Example one is Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder. It tells you everything you need to know. Number five, I say, is something like Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, which is an event in the middle of a giant story and a bunch of other stuff. You can start reading there, but you're going to be confused as hell. I factor in other things that aren't just confusion, like general quality and uh content and uh you know just how difficult it is to read. Based on all of that, as far as the monster smut genre, would uh what what would your rating be as ease of getting into, representation of the genre, and uh overall quality? Which what's your rating? And lower is e easier to get into here.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

So easier to yeah, easier to get into is an interesting one for me because I read so fast that if something is easily digestible, I will almost never not DNF it because I can get through it so fast. So for me, easy to get into it's pretty easy because I can get through it. Is this a good representation of the of the genre? I would say no. Not for the first chapter. The entire book? Maybe the first chapter, no, not a good representation. Because the the last one was, is it well written?

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah, is it well written? Just those are some criteria I I usually go through.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

You get better, Ruby Dixon, but right now, no.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Is it okay if I give a new reader friendly scale on this since I've never read a monster smut? Okay. I I want I want the entire audience to know this. This is me who has read one chapter of a monster smut book. My wife, Katia, who is beautiful, smarter than me, and one of the smartest people on the planet, and thank God she's not evil, is a much better. So what what was your numerical rating again? I already forgot it.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Oh, I didn't think I gave numericals. Um I'd give it a three.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Okay. I I was gonna go four on this one just because there so they do talk about some you know graphic stuff in here, but it's not graphic. They talk about awful things, and uh the writing is laughably bad at some points. From what I understand, it gets a lot better, and I'm always willing to give someone better benefit of the doubt. If I can give you one takeaway from these episodes, please don't judge an entire author by one book. I mean, if you could pick up like any of 40 Stephen King novels and think he's the worst writer of the of all time, and you really have to find one of the good ones. So uh I I will finish this book and maybe I'll do like a TikTok update of me finishing this, and we'll just go from there or something. Uh so do you want to introduce that other scale that we talked about?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

This is the spicy scale, right? So I level one, which is the least spicy, is jalapeno, level two is habanero, three is uh ghost pepper, four is reaper pepper, and five is pepper eye.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

And what's your spice scale rating?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

So just for this first scene, since it is a little almost kind of consensual nonconsent, I'll give it like a three. So it is a ghost pepper.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Uh I I am I allowed to give a rating on this one as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

I I kind of gotta give it like a three or four as well. I'll give it a four just because so the first scene is gradual. Of sex. This is not a good sexual representation. The second scene is consensual, non-consent, but in a strange, strange way. So I'm giving it a four. And I am also going to say not a good sexual representation, completely separate statement. I want more sexual-based storytelling that is good sexual representation.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Once you finish this, if you are interested, I can give you good. If you want purely monster or if you want to just try a dark romance, there's one that has much decently better writing.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

I will defer your judgment. Uh, don't even tell me what it is. Just uh when I when I finish this one and when I'm ready for another monster smut book, I will I will definitely take you up on the offer. Okay. Can you give can you give the audience recommendations for more of this writer or more of just Monster Smut in general?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So I would say the further Ice Planet Barbarians are much better. Because there are so how it works is it follows an individual girl. So I believe the next book is Liz.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And so there are gonna be like personalities you like better, and there are gonna be male love interests that you like better. Because everybody, she is kind of good at they're very broad personalities. No one has like a very multi-faceted layered personality or anything. But if we're just looking at this like it's popcorn reality television, they're at they're enjoyable. So you'll probably find someone you mesh with a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

No, uh, one last chance to dump on the writing a little bit for for me. Um, and I am so sorry to be negative. I don't like being this guy, but it's so easy to do here and it's low-hanging fruit. Can I just say what I think Liz's personality is? And it's it's uh it's actually twofold. Well, uh, you cut out, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

You said sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Oh, uh so Liz's personality, uh, I think she is one part Obi-Wan Kenobi because she's she's the guide character, she's the mentor, and Liz's other personality trait is she's Liz.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Um, no. In her book, she's very much a things are my way, I want things done my way. I am much more of a loner than anything. Um and a little bit more brash.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Well, I believe you and I trust you. The uh the other person's personality, uh Kira, is that her name? Uh Kira also seems like her personality is Kira.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Um she is more shy. I'm trying to think if she's the one that I'm thinking of, but she's more shy and quiet and reserved.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

So, yeah, do we do we have any other uh thoughts on this book before uh we move move on?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Um, I think we covered most of them. Thank you for being patient and reading it with me.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

No problem. I it was fun to do it. So I I like doing things with you that are fun and silly, and this is a way to do it. And uh even if I don't like the thing, uh, you know, I I'll listen to a lot of like movie rewatch podcasts and a lot of TV show rewatch podcasts. And one of the things that uh they talk about that is um uh when they talk about liking it, there there's one I listen to called Podmortem, and they bring up a lot sometimes that they're the thing they liked about the movie the most when they don't like the movie is they like the spending the time together watching the movie together. And that's like where their good memories come from. So I'm always gonna have the memory of just laying in bed next to you reading this piece of writing, and uh, you know, I'm gonna enjoy it, and you know, I'm gonna have that memory of the enjoyment of the reading. So I'm I'm always gonna have that, and it's and it's it's gonna be cute. It I'll s if it maybe gets better, I will maybe give more thoughts, and maybe if depending when uh I finish it, uh maybe I'll try to edit in something at the end. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

All right, so you get to introduce our next read.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

So the title of this episode is called Monsters and Monstrous. So we were talking about monstrous by Marjorie Lou in Santa Canda. Uh Dicada, I believe, is the pronunciation. I'm actually going to try to look that up a little bit better here. Uh, so we each kind of picked a book for this. We did the last one for Equal Parts Sillies and um Equal Parts. We we do just want people to read things that aren't comic books. We want you to read all kinds of things. Um, and you know, uh it's we're recording this during International Women's Month. You know, it's uh good to read more women. And so we we are switching now over to a comic book because you know, this is a comic book-based podcast, and we have that word beyond in there, so we can occasionally talk about stuff that isn't comics. So we are talking about Marjorie Lou in Santa Takeda Monstrous. Uh, we were talking about only the first issue today. That's the only thing we're gonna even get anywhere close to spoilery on. So I first read Monstrous last year. It had been on my radar for a long time. Uh, I think it was just sold out at the shop when it first started coming out. So I read it all last year. I have the hard covers and it's really great. Normally I don't do this, but since we're in silly mode, I kind of did you read any of these like quotes at the opening of the book?

SPEAKER_00 27:24

No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

I'm going to read a couple of them because these sounds so bad. I just wanna. This book is amazing. I'm not gonna bury you the lead. I love this book, but the way they do the quotes on here, there's one I will not read for legal reasons. Fill in the blanks and look at the cover if you want to know. Filled to the Brim with Awesome by Kirkis by the Hollywood recorder. Dot dot dot includes not only girls in giant monsters, but also world building on a scale rare in mainstream comics.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Do you uh do you have a story recap for this? Or do we do we have any disclaimers we want to talk about before we get into this book?

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Um potential fuzzy child murder.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, there's so this book is pretty dark. I would say the first book we talked about today had some inappropriate scenes. Or inappropriate handling of scenes. Is that more accurate? I think that's fair. This scene, this book has appropriate handling of really, really dark shit. This is about like the calm in the middle of a hurricane, and that hurricane is a war with a lot of conflict. Oh, uh, I forgot something. You said you had a trivia game at some point.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Oh, I had two questions. One was the trivia question about how many are there, and I forgot I was gonna ask you, can you name three romantic tropes?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Oh, oh, uh, so three three romantic tropes. Um friends to lovers.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Or is it and it and we'll say enemies to lovers is the same trope. Or are you calling the two?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

No, they're different ones.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Um trauma porn, does that count? Like whatever Nicholas Sparks rates?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

That's not okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Um there is the one you mentioned uh about like the fate being drawn together. But you faded mates, so that's that's another one. I don't want to count that one because you set it this episode.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Uh um there's one I complain about all the time.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

You complain about a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Um I know, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Miscommunication trope.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Miscommunication, there we go. Yeah, no, that's one I don't like either.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

The trope where near the end the they need to throw in some kind of conflict, so they just make them not communicate well. And then that's the big drama.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

You mean the same trope that I don't like in pretty much any media where if the two main characters just had a fucking conversation, the whole story wouldn't need to fucking happen? Yeah, I agree. Yep. Okay, so sorry about that. I just wanted to make sure we got both your trivia questions because uh on the last episode of this show, she actually stumped me on a trivia question. Uh, we recorded an episode a while ago and it just came out so bad I had to scrap it. But uh we're both in a lot better place now and we can just go on. Do you want to tell the world? Do you want to tell the world about your new job, by the way? Because it's actually really awesome.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Oh, um I moved from working primary care, which was soul crushing, to it's functionally a Planned Parenthood, but it's its own brand. So we do a lot of the same things, Planned Parenthood, except we don't do abortions. Not every Planned Parenthood does abortions either, but it's a women's health clinic, but we also do sexual health, so there's lots of STD testing. Um, I'm gonna be changed in gender-affirming care, so I get to start doing hormone therapy for trans people. We do prep, which is HIV prevention, so just a lot of really cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Nice. And we're not gonna say the name of your clinic, obviously. If your your uh but say someone does need an abortion, you would assist with like finding helping them find the resources.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

We would give them basically if you come in with a positive pregnancy test, we say, Oh, what would you like to do? And if they want to continue the pregnancy, we can hook them up into GYNs. Or if they say they want to terminate, we get them to that direction as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

That's awesome. So I just wanted to, you know, put some little goodwill into the world that you are fighting the good fight. Uh so let's get back to monstrous. We tangent a little bit, but that's what podcasting is. Uh, how did you end up reading this? Was this your wheel of reading?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah, it's my TBR wheel. Um I have been instead of picking which book I want to read just by looking at myself and picking one, I have been randomly picking by a wheel so I can get through some of my backlogs of books where I'm like, oh, I don't know. Do I want to read that one? And then this one I just read it. And they've I've got some pretty good ones. And Monstrous was on the wheel.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah, that's a really great practice. I'm actually uh doing kind of something similar for a lot of the uh comic backlogs that I want to read. Um, so what did you think of this book when you first read it?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Oh, I loved it a lot. It scratched my fantasy itch that I get sometimes, but I actually liked this because since I don't see pictures, seeing the fantasy world for me was actually pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

It's so weird that you don't see pictures and you weren't more into like comics, uh, you know, uh like in part of your reading.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Comics were a boy thing, girls didn't do comics.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Uh would you like to talk more about your upbringing or um No, I was forced into some pretty strict gender rules.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And if it was a boy activity, I wasn't allowed to do it. Except for video games for some reason. I think that was just a way for my mom to get my brother to watch me.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

No, that probably is you know, gender gender rules are uh important things to parents unless they're inconvenient. So if uh any anyone just heard a uh cell phone alarm go off, uh we have a fat raccoon that we live with that's also called a cat, and uh she just requires a pill twice a day that we have to shove in her little kitten mouth, and that was the reminder, but we did that before uh coming up here. Yeah, fat raccoon is an accurate way to describe that kitten, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Oh, very, very much so.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

But she's so cute though. You uh you really like this one because you got to see the cool fantasy world, and um this art is unbelievable. This is Santa I'm I need to like look at again because I'm so bad with memes. Santa Takeda. Like this art is truly some of the most beautiful art I have ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

It's so detailed, but it's still very easy to understand.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Yeah, like it's not busy at all. It's just like I think it's that everything looks like it should be where it is, and like just one of the opening pages is you see like this uh like a meeting room where you have tons of detailed stuff, but everything is it it you can just like your brain almost fills in the gaps where you think stuff would be. Like you have all these statuesque uh pictures, and um you you have all these really ornate chairs, and everything is like truly ornamental, like it really sets the picture, and then you go into this like Victorian era stuff, and like you can see the living, breathing aspects of this world, and everything is so detailed, like there's not a blank wall anywhere. It is like if it's not beautifully drawn in with ornate detail, it is full of like crumbling and cracks and stuff like that, and the people in this look like real people, everything looks so good.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I agree with all of that.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

So, do you want to talk about some of the characters in this one?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Sure. I don't know if I'm gonna pronounce her name right, but is it Micah? Micah?

SPEAKER_02 35:04

May I've yeah, let's go with Micah. If anyone actually knows the pronunciation of this, please let us know because I am bad at names. Micah, is that what we're going with? Micah?

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Micah Micah.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

We'll go with Micah.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Micah, okay. She's our main character and she's called an arcanic. And basically, my uh like notes on her is that she uh was sold into slavery like twice, and then she was pulled in part of a war. She's looking for answers about her mother and her family history, and she has had like zero agency in her life, whether through manipulation or literal slave trade.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yep. And the only thing I would add is I think all of that together has made her very stoic.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yep. She is a hundred percent super stoic, and she is very she's like past the point of stoic to uh where she kind of doesn't care about other people, and you're just kind of getting that really quick. Like she does she like saves people because she knows it's the right thing, but not kind of any kind of personal connection to her. Like that's how I put that.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Uh we also have a couple, we have a lot of characters introduced in here. Uh, I think the only other one really worth mentioning here is Tuya, I think is the little girl's name.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Tula, Tulia.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Thulia, Tulia, Tulia. Uh she's kind of like Micah's companion. We don't really know their backstory together. Uh, we know that they came to they've been they they were working together prior to the start of the story. We get like two little flashback scenes talking about them. The story is basically about Micah going on an infiltration mission uh to try to get the answers that she needs about her past or whatever answers she can get, and she's willingly more or less going back into slavery where she came from. Is there anything else interesting about Micah that you wanted to bring up?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

She seems to have some kind of power that we're unsure what it is at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Um, I think we can spoil this one since it's a key aspect of the series. Part of her arm is missing, and in that arm is regrown by basically a demon god, and she is branded a witch. She is called an arcanic that is a type of uh species that can do magic, and she is uh how do I want to put this? She's she's in human form. Um, she is like 17 in this, I think they specif specify.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

17.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Um, so what what uh before we you know go too much further in here, are there any other characters you wanted to bring up specifically? Oh, is that that's the little fox girl? Yes, yep, yeah. We were introduced to a little fox girl. There's another little girl who we know before the story, and then there's the uh two-tailed cat.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

That's Professor Tonks, is it?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

No, Professor Tam Tam does the things at the end. Um, I forget the two-tailed cat's name.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Oh, wait, I thought the two-tailed cat was Professor Tam Tam. It's been a year since I read more than the first chapter of this, and the first issue of this comic is like 60 pages. It's huge. There's Ren. Okay. So yeah, we we get a two-tailed cat, we get her uh little girl companion, then we get Pippa, who's her new companion she finds. Then pretty much everyone else in this is either trying to kill her in Slaver or has tried to kill her in the past.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

And uh there is a oh, I referenced the scene today. I'm pretty sure there is a full metal alchemist reference in this, uh, in a way, because someone gets lit on fire.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Uh so would you say the uh tone in this is clear at all?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

And um, yeah, I'd say it's a pretty clear tone. We're in a serious fantasy world.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

What what would you what do you like about this fantasy world? Like, what what do you think makes this one unique compared to other fantasy worlds?

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I like the species of the arcanex, the fact that they are kind of descended from like animal creatures and they have animal features.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

And are you still wearing your uh Avatar The Last Airbender t-shirt today? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

I am not. I'm wearing my Vincent Van Gogh Batman t-shirt right now.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

That is also a great t-shirt. You have great t-shirts. Um, so thematically, what do you think this story is about?

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Um, it's about prejudice.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. It's the story is more or less just really complicated uh racism and classism. Like, um, so the one thing that this story I think is pitched as is it's a matriarchical society based kind of on uh Chinese, like around the turn of the 20th century, um, like geopolitics, maybe. Uh someone might need to fact check me on that, but uh I I think that's kind of the uh the uh the the background of this. Like that's where it was kind of like developed from, or like some of the ideas came from. And it's a system of power, and and like it's matriarchical in a way, where most of the cast of this story is female, and there's not many male characters, like at all.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

It's still a very patriarchal society, though.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

It's still it's it's the patriarchy with a matriarchical skin. That's I'll set that. I'm trying to think of a way to say this that doesn't sound awful. Um systems of power are bad. And systems of power that create prejudice are bad. The patriarchy is overtly bad. Well, it is a system created by men to put women down, it is a system created by men to really create a shitty system for all people who are living under it. Can you say that in a smarter way than what I just did?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I mean, I think you did a good job.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

I think that's what they're getting at. Well, women suffer disproportionately a lot more under our patriarchical society. It's truly a system of power that when we're talking about we saying we hate the patriarchy. We're not saying we hate men, we're saying we hate systems of power that create shitty environments for anyone.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

Now I talk about what's called a three-part harmony on this thing where I say it's the right character for the right story for the right theme, creating a three-part harmony of good storytelling. Do you think this creates or bel or falls into the three-part harmony?

SPEAKER_00 41:45

That's pretty well. You have a good, interesting main character who is part, basically a victim of the system that she's trying to overpower. I feel like that is a good harmony there.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

That's kind of my take. She's a victim of a system. She is it is solidly her story. So do we have much else to say in this before we go to the closing stuff?

SPEAKER_00 42:12

I just thought it was really pretty and it's very relaxing.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yeah, it ah, you found found this relaxing, huh? This story about war and murder and a one-armed woman, you know, going through slaughtering her captors. Yeah, that's that's relaxing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

If art is pretty, it's relaxing to me.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Fair enough. Um, so do you want to do a uh new reader-friendly scale on this one?

unknown 42:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

It's about a I'll say if you are a good fantasy reader, it's a two.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

I I kind of wanted to give this one like a two to three, to be honest. And I say most indie comics are a three because you don't need to deal with or a one because you don't need to deal with huge backstories. This one is dense.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

It is It does what the fantasy books do, which I don't like in fantasy books where they just start throwing words at you and you're just supposed to keep reading till it clicks.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

But it was easier for me seeing the art where I didn't have to worry about trying to figure out what they're talking about visually, that I didn't mind it as much here.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Um, so I'm I'm I'm giving this one a three as well, uh, just because it's it's really thick. They throw a lot at you, and they introduce literally like 10 characters here uh early on, and you get a lot more. So that is one thing, but Cody will tell you I don't really like fantasy that much. This is a rare exception where I really like this story because it is this is a huge meal to take in and it's and it's beautiful. Would you uh do you do you want to apply the spicy scale to this one too? Because me, I'm going straight jalapeno. It's not it's not even a jalapeno.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Jalapeno. It didn't even show nip.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah, like there's no real nudity in this thing. Like, there's a lot of implications of assaults, but But like they don't show it, which I I like a lot.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I appreciate them not showing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

As far as the uh quality side, what what's your what you're reading on the quality scale? Like uh just just give me a a a sentence that describes your quality.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

On my scale, this is a five. I would definitely, it is something I wish I could read again for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Geez, I didn't know you liked it that much.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

But I mean Yeah, I like it a whole lot.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Yep. I I might slowly continue reading it. Part of me wants to just wait till it's all done to read it again, but I own the first three hardcovers, so that should kind of clue people in. And I'm honestly considering buying the soft cover. So I have a matching set of that because there's more soft covers out than there are hardcovers. So it this is one of my higher scales. As far as recommendations for um fantasy in general, is there anything you could give? Doesn't have to be a comic, it could be anything.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Yeah, I'm thinking. So it kind of reminds me a little bit of his dark materials. So that's the golden compass series.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Um, just because of not that I see pictures, but I feel like the art style with the details is like it's not exactly filigree, but the details there remind me of a lot of the art that I see fan art for his dark materials and just the fact that it is a huge story about a war.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Gotcha. So would would you recommend something like Game of Thrones instead of this?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Um, no, because I think Game of Thrones is a lot more low fantasy, it's more the political thriller fantasy than anything about like epic hero journey.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Gotcha. Yeah, this is this is definitely higher fantasy. I don't read a lot of fantasy. Um, so I don't really have many recommendations, though. I did just read Birthright by Joshua Williamson. And if you want a fantasy story, uh, though uh I'd say it's that one's a lot more popcorn action than anything like thick, deep to chew on. Uh Joshua Williamson Birthright would probably be my go-to there. Uh, did do you did you happen to read anything or look up anything by the writer or artist of this?

SPEAKER_00 46:16

I did not, no.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

Um, if you were open to more things, they have another indie comic book together. Uh, I'm gonna see if I can find that. I I don't own it. It's like they have a book called Oh, uh, she has a book called NYX, which I've read some of. I haven't read all of it. She actually has a bunch of novels. Yeah, she has 11 novels just listed on Wikipedia. No, she has like 16 novels listed on Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Yeah, as far as comic books go, The Night Eaters is the name of the other book that they were producing at the same time as they were doing Monstrous. Uh, she's also done a lot of X-Men work. Uh X23 is the big one, Dark Wolverine, and um, she did later issues of uh Astonishing X-Men, which it was written by Joss Whedon. So uh the late the later issues she picked up. I I think there was some between the two of them. I'm honestly not sure. I think we're both pretty high in this one. I think we're both uh not the most impressed with the first one. And uh but you said the rest of it gets better, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:20

The rest of it gets better.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

It's it's a popcorn romance smut book. They're supposed to be easily digestible, not a lot of deep thinking and just you want sex positive stories. There's so much in smut.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yep, but just not that particular one that is that one is not very sex positive. It's yeah. Gotti, do you have any closing thoughts? Any goodwill you want to put into the world, any positive messages, an anything you want to promote, like TikTok or whatever?

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Nope. I'm super happy you started this podcast because I think it's been something really good for you and it's fun to do. And I want to go eat some peanut butter trail mix.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Okay, uh, I'm not gonna deny you of peanut butter trail mix any longer. Um, do you know what we're doing next time when we're on the show together?

SPEAKER_00 48:10

You wanted to redo Exquisite Corpses and Minor Arcana.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Oh, yeah, I guess we could do that announcement too. So I we're recorded a little farther ahead. Uh, I don't know exactly what's going to happen. Uh, nothing bad. Uh so older episodes, the equal parts sounded like butt and had our old name on. So I just wanted them kind of down. Uh, I left up uh collabs in the first couple of this format and just put a disclaimer on them. So we're gonna try to get those old episodes with the new crew up. Uh because it sounds like Katia kind of likes being here. Do you am I right when I say that? And uh other people who have been on the show that you met the last couple weeks uh had a lot of fun too. So we're gonna try to get them on as often as possible. Sometimes it's probably still gonna just be me. Uh, but I have more fun talking to my friends. Uh, so we're gonna keep doing that and we're gonna keep get trying to get interviews on and collabs and stuff. Like, like I said, go uh, you know, check out the last couple collabs we did with Jimmy Gasparo and John Klein. Uh, if you want to get a hold of me, I'm at Comic Books Beyond Everywhere. Do you have a place people would like to uh you'd like to put into the world or no?

SPEAKER_00 49:21

I'm active on TikTok on at Katia Bear. Uh well, on Instagram, same. My social medias are always the same at Katia Bear. But the easiest way is if you want a direct question from me, you can always email Adam and he'll get it to me.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

Okay, so I think that's been this week's episode. Uh, I am scrolling through uh my schedule to see if I can announce what the next thing is. Oh, uh, so next week, so this is dropping April 1st. Next week, we're going to be talking about the first issue of Daredevil by Stephanie Phillips. I should be getting that one. So that issue comes out April 1st, the same day this drops. So I'm not killing myself in the month of April with um uploads. So we are gonna put that one out there. We probably have um a couple YouTube thingies coming up uh in the next month. Uh, do you want to be on that episode, hon? The Daredevil by Stephanie Phillips?

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Um, I can.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

We'll see uh if you want to. Uh then I think we're also gonna be talking about Invincible this month. Uh, we have one other one that I'm kind of tentative on and one I don't want to announce yet. Uh, but the other thing Katya was talking about was redoing old episodes with kind of the crew on. So whoever wants to be on, we're gonna throw those up. No notice, just throw them up as an extra episode, random surprise for you. So you can always be on the lookout. I can almost guarantee one will not happen in the month of April, though. Uh I just I have too much going on in April. It sucks. All right. I am not gonna describe you or the deprive you of peanuts any longer.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

All right.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Have a good night.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

Take care, everybody. Well, guys, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get a hold of me through email, I'm at comicbooksbeyond at gmail.com, and I'm at comic books beyond on Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and we're also on YouTube. Some of the podcasts are gonna go there, but we're also working on some extra content for YouTube as well. I'd like to give a thank you to the crew of the Talking Comic Books podcast, Brad and Lease of Comic Book Couples Counseling, Alex Jaffe, Jeremy Whitley, Bran McNulty, Jimmy Gasparo, and the crew of Comic Book Yeti, and John Klein III of Shadowflame with Magic. Most importantly, I'd like to thank all of our listeners and supporters. Be good to each other out there and take care of your people. We'll see you next time.