The Feral Fandoms Podcast

How Teen Wolf Won Hearts—and Lost Its Pack

• Onley James & Shannon Ezzell

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Fans don’t just watch; they build. This week we trace how Teen Wolf lit up the internet with sharp humor, pulpy lore, and explosive chemistry—then fumbled the bag by turning on the very community that made the show a phenomenon. We talk through the early magic: Stiles as the stealth lead, Derek as the reluctant anchor, hunters with silver-coded names, and a transformation aesthetic that chose human-adjacent menace over full-wolf horror. The storytelling worked because the emotional rules held, until Sterek became the center of gravity and the response shifted from playful winks to public ridicule.

We dig into what changed behind and in front of the camera: the rise of Dylan O’Brien and Tyler Hoechlin, network optics around age and queerness, and the real-world pressures that spook executives into hedging. Then we follow the fallout. When fans feel baited, they take their creativity elsewhere—AO3 flourished with richer packs, resurrected favorites, and a version of the mythos that protected core dynamics. We connect these dots to other TV pivots (9-1-1, Vampire Diaries, The Originals) and show how listening to on-screen chemistry is not “pandering”; it’s craft. Chemistry is data. Payoff is trust.

We also broaden the conversation to romance craft: why readers gravitate toward m/m romance, how BDSM can be written with consent and depth, and why calling queer love stories “porn” erases plot, agency, and character. The through line is clear: don’t promise what you won’t honor, don’t mock the people who amplify your work, and don’t confuse subtext with a marketing plan. If you’re building a world fans want to live in, treat them like co-architects, not props.

Enjoy the breakdown? Tap follow, drop a review, and share this episode with a friend who ships hard. Your downloads keep us caffeinated and feisty—what ship should we tackle next?

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SPEAKER_02:

Hey everybody, welcome to episode five of the Feral Phantoms podcast. Today we are going to be diving into Teen Wolf, and I have a lot. Twilight. A lot to say. We did Twilight already, episode three.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh no, no, no, you're right. My bad, my bad, my bad. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02:

Girl, it was only two episodes ago.

unknown:

What the hell?

SPEAKER_02:

Anyway, I'm only James, gay romance author, and this is Shannon, who apparently is very forgetful.

SPEAKER_00:

Forgetful Shannon. That's it. You get no other information about me. It's just Shannon. I blackout. I'm actually blackout drunk when I do these at 11 in the morning. So just that's my I can only have a personality wasted. So people are going to believe you. Good. Write your letters. Next week, Shannon's intervention. So write your letters. I love when people write your letters.

SPEAKER_02:

We are both very tired today. Neither of us got any sleep. So this is going to be the old school, we're here for the occult stuff, absolutely running on caffeine version of us today. Yeah. When people stop being polite and start getting real. Aging ourselves. No shit. So yeah, we're going to talk about a teen wolf today. And like I said, I have a lot to say. I was a huge, huge, huge Teen Wolf fan until they kind of screwed the pooch, in my opinion. And this is basically just going to be a masterclass on what not to do when you have a super successful show.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm assuming werewolves. I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_02:

We call them werewolves because for werewolves, they were all weirdly hair-free when they were in human form.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh boo!

SPEAKER_02:

I like a hair. Even they used to make fun of the fact that somehow none of them had any hair on their bodies. So they used to call them werewolves instead of werewolves. That's hilarious. But yeah, it ran from I did not realize it started in 2011 and it ran till 2018, which seems like yesterday to me. Yes. Even though I guess technically it's seven years ago, almost eight, but it just seems like yesterday, literally. And it was loosely based on the 1980s movie with Michael J. Fox called Teen Wolf, which had the silliest looking wolves in it. It was very much a werewolves of London wearing a letterman jacket with fuzzy paws sticking out, kind of.

SPEAKER_00:

Like the Michael Jackson video. With the werewolves in that.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, exactly. Lazy werewolfing. I get it. Yes, very, very lazy. Jacob would be very disappointed.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. There was definitely no like badass kind of sound. Or like vampire diaries where they have to chain themselves up. Yeah. Yeah. And there was like, yeah, their bones are cracking. Yes. That's right. They did show the transition in the vampire diaries because the first time Tyler ever changes, it is the sound. It's graphic.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The bones are cracking the sound. That's why I could definitely not want to be a werewolf if I don't want to be a werewolf anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

It seems like they lose. Unless I'm like sentient, I'm like still me, and I'm just like sneaking around like a little wolf.

SPEAKER_02:

Some of them are, and depending on your lore, some people are still very much aware of who they are.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then some people, like in Teen Wolf, they don't really turn into a full wolf. They become hybrid, a furry, if you will.

SPEAKER_00:

A furry. Okay, so are they on two legs? Is that what we're talking about? They lope. Oh what?

SPEAKER_02:

They lope. Like so they're still in human form, but they run on all fours.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so they're weight. Okay, good question. So okay, so they're humans. So they're humans, they're furry. They have fangs. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Pointy ears. Paws. We have paws. They have paws, they have long nails, and then they they lope like antelopes.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I'm googling a teen wolf in full form, right? I need to see this. Teen wolf as a wolf.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, but you might get Derek, who has the ability to turn into a full wolf eventually. Wait. Oh, so they just get like weird foreheads?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, they get weird, they get like Crow Magnon man brow. What the fuck is this, Martina? That is not a werewolf. Who told them that? Okay, so they stick their jaw out a little bit, okay? They get a wider bridged nose, yeah. Pointy ears, and then an emo haircut. But yes, they have a very Crow Magnon man brow that arrives, like and like they get the little emo haircut, and they've got some chops, a little bit of chops. Yeah, yeah. So they're actually not wolves at all. So to be clear, this is the man. This is an odd-looking man. I'll give them that.

SPEAKER_02:

Very.

SPEAKER_00:

But this is in fact not a wolf.

SPEAKER_02:

So I'm just saying he is. If you guys are okay with it, I'm okay. Obviously, people were into it. Okay. Again, I didn't get into Teen Wolf until I got into the steric fandom on AO3. I started reading fanfics about Styles and Derek, the characters on the show, before I ever got into Teen Wolf. I thought they were canon. I thought they were an actual couple in Teen Wolf. So I was really confused when I started watching the show. Because at first, Styles, who's played by Dylan O'Brien, who steals the show, by the way. This is the whole, I think this is kind of part of the beef with beef. What beef people?

SPEAKER_00:

What's going on?

unknown:

Listen.

SPEAKER_02:

So 2011, boom, the show comes out. People are these guys are hot. It got a little bit of a buzz right from the beginning. Nobody knew who Dylan O'Brien was. Tyler Posey was the star because he had been in a movie with Jennifer Lopez when he was a little kid. So he was the one with the name, essentially. But I had never heard of him. I'd never heard of Dylan O'Brien. He was brand new, he'd never done anything before. But episode one, Dylan O'Brien, his comedic timing, his sarcasm. You know how much everybody just loves somebody who can deliver a good sarcastic line. He immediately overshadowed Tyler Posey right off the bat.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

But in real life, they became best friends. Boom. They were everywhere together. I'm pretty sure there are still best friends to this day. So everybody on the set got really close with each other. But in season one, Styles is in love with the rich girl who doesn't give him the time of day, played by Holland Roden. Her name is Lydia in the show. Lydia is dating Colton Haynes character. His name is Jackson in the show. Very, very hot, very rich, very, very date rapey douche kind of energy.

SPEAKER_00:

I thought you were gonna say that, give him another compliment. I'm like, I'm into it. Oh, date rapey, cool.

SPEAKER_02:

He's not really date rapy with a big setup, but really he has like a really aggressive nature, and he's a bully, for sure. And he's mean to Lydia, who pretends to be very stupid, even though she's a genius, um, which you don't really figure out until later on in the first season. Um but it starts with Posey's character, Dylan O'Brien's character. So Scott and uh Styles going to look for a dead body. Styles' dad is uh the sheriff. He hears that there's been a dead body's been found in the woods. He's let's go look for it. If you want to go look for a body, and Scott says, What kind of body? A body of water, idiot. A dead body. That was a big thing. This is MTV.

SPEAKER_00:

MTV.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. They used to play things besides ridiculousness?

SPEAKER_00:

That's weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, this was like their first big fiction type show, not a reality TV show. Um, so they go, they find half of a dead body, they freak out. Scott, who has asthma, loses his inhaler, the sheriff shows up, sees Styles. Styles pretends he's out there alone. Scott gets left in the woods, styles leaves with his dad, and Scott gets attacked by an animal. A wolf. Or a man.

SPEAKER_00:

That kind of looks a little bit weird.

SPEAKER_02:

He gets attacked by a furry.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, not even a furry.

SPEAKER_02:

The furry community, to be clear, is in more costume than this. It's true. They are in much more costume and probably aren't out in the woods attacking people. Probably. Probably. I don't like to do broad strokes. No broad strokes here. I've never seen a furry crime before. I will say that. Other than some people think being a furry is a crime. I don't. You know. I don't want to yuck anybody's yuck. This is a safe space. That's right. Okay, so the next morning, obviously, just in typical werewolf fashion, he wakes up, suddenly he doesn't need his inhaler. Suddenly he can hear things he shouldn't be able to hear, see things he shouldn't be able to see. He's got a little child. Yeah. He and Styles have been on the little cross team for a long time, but neither of them ever get to play because they're bad. Now all of a sudden, he's like just abs. He's all exactly. You know how it goes. Makeover transition. Scott has no idea what's going on. He is very happily just confused, per usual. He's too busy noticing the new girl, Allison, who just rolled into town. He's like, I want that girl. I'm never gonna get that girl. She's too hot. She's already hanging out with the cool kids. But Alison's, she's hot, but she's quirky. You know the type.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, pizza, bearn, football.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

She wears short skirts, uh, wear t-shirts, cheese, t-shirts.

SPEAKER_02:

She sees Scott, she likes Scott, so she doesn't care that her friends don't like Scott. Um, Lydia and her immediately become besties. And even though Lydia is a little bit of a bitch in season one, she's still likable enough that you don't hate her on the spot. You do hate Jackson because he's not only mean to everybody else, he's mean to Lydia. And what's the point? Now, in real life, this is important, this is why I'm telling you this. Colton Haynes is very much out of the closet now. He is, has an ex-husband, I think he has a current husband. But at the time, he when he got the role on Teen Wolf, he was already out, right? He had gone to prom with another boy. They immediately stuffed him back in the closet and forced him and Holland Roden to pretend to date.

SPEAKER_00:

What the fuck? Yeah, in the big 2011.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Exactly. And that's why this whole thing is so sus. Because Jeff Davis, who wrote the show, also wrote Criminal Minds, FYI. Um, you love this guy. Yeah. Jeff Davis, gay.

SPEAKER_00:

You'd think he probably didn't make them date. That sounds like a producer.

SPEAKER_02:

He didn't make them date, but he did do a lot of fucked up shit. So sorry, Jeff Davis. I'm just calling it like I see it. I'm not sure. Don't unsubscribe shows.

SPEAKER_00:

Jeff Davis, don't drop your Patreon subscription, please. We love you. I've never watched anything you've ever done, but I will. Don't listen to her.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm scared that you, of all people, have never watched Criminal Minds. Your mother loved that show. She's the one who got me into Criminal Minds. I'm gonna watch Teen Wolf after this. It's so good. I'm telling you. It's good in that cheesy way vampire diaries is good, you know? Like where everything's just so over the top and dramatic, but you can't stop watching it. You hate the main character so much. You don't like Scott. You will in the beginning, and eventually he just becomes more and more unlikable. And Styles almost becomes the main character, which I'm sure probably pissed Tyler Posey off a little bit, but he never stopped being friends with Dylan O'Brien. Even when Dylan O'Brien got super famous and did the maze runner and all this other stuff and started getting main character roles, and Tyler Posey started doing OnlyFans, they were still besties, you know? So OnlyFansy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

He's he's yeah. We'll get to that too if we have time. Anyway, so we'll make time.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to hear about that.

SPEAKER_02:

I love an entrepreneur. One styles is constantly making comments that make you think that he's bisexual. In one part, he's asking if the gay kid at school thinks he's attractive. Another, he asks Scott if they could just try making out to see if they're into each other. And then when I want to see season oh god, is it season three, season four? In one of them, they're killing virgins, and Stylus is still a virgin, and he's in the locker room and he's freaking out, and he's somebody needs to sex me right now, basically. I need to get laid. And he's trying to get Scott to basically take one for the team. Somebody's gotta fuck me, dude, because I am probably the only virgin left in school. And so Danny, the gay kid, basically closes a locker and he's like, I'll do it. Styles is like, really? Oh, that's so sweet. Seriously? And he's like, Yeah, plan on staying the night. I like to cuddle. And he's like, really? He's like, no, not really, you idiot. And he like leaves. Oh, boo! What the hell? Styles is literally disappointed. Everybody's like, okay, yeah, he's bisexual. Cool. He can still like Lydia and be bisexual. Right. But whenever he is on screen with Derek, the chemistry is chemistrying. Like to the point where even the writers realized immediately that their chemistry was so good, they started manufacturing reasons to put the two of them on screen together. And then the Starek Phantom was born in season one, immediately right off the bat, because it's the grumpy sunshine, it's the enemies to lovers kind of thing, because everybody thinks that Derek's A, a murderer, and B, he's the one who turns Scott. He's neither of those things.

SPEAKER_00:

He's not a murderer either. Damn.

SPEAKER_02:

No. Well, he is eventually, but not then.

SPEAKER_00:

Not yet.

SPEAKER_02:

Give it time. He thinks he's a murderer because he gets involved with Al Okay, so Allison's family turns out to be werewolf hunters. Oh, obviously, we need hunters. He does not know that her family hunts werewolves, and she does not know that she's dating a werewolf.

SPEAKER_00:

I get it. Is there like an original family? Are they like a founding family? Yes. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. I know the vibe.

SPEAKER_02:

We've been hunting werewolves for hundreds of years. They're French. Like her last name is Argent, which means silver. Like, there's lore, and they get deeper into that lore the further you go into the show. But she has no idea. She just thinks her dad is an arms dealer, which is kind of crazy in and of itself. But you know, they have her mom is wild. Her mom is this super severe looking woman with uber short red hair, looks like she could kick your ass in a boxing ring, right? Okay. Her dad is played by one of the hottest men alive. Also, I'm almost 100% positive is gay in real life. Everybody in this show, a little gay in real life. It's crazy. Some of the most talented people in the world. What are you gonna do about it? Right? Um, but yeah, so her dad, super hot. His name in the show is Chris Argent, gorgeous, chef's kiss. Uh and he, of course, is clocking that he knows all about Derek's family because they are a big family of actual werewolves. They weren't turned, they were born wolves. So he's clocking Derek's family. Derek is trying to recruit Scott. He still thinks that Derek's the one who turned him. Nobody knows who actually turned him.

SPEAKER_00:

Into a werewolf, not gay, to be clear. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Like he's not actually turned people. He's not propaganda, as far as we know. But Derek's family was killed in a fire. You don't really know much more about that. You just know he's basically an orphan, and all of his family, including his extended family, died in a fire, except for his uncle, who is basically catatonic, burned to a crisp, and a nursing home, even though he's in his 30s.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

He's just living his life.

SPEAKER_00:

Laying it on a little thick, MTV. All right. Listen, they know how to write a story. They said WB, pull my beer.

SPEAKER_02:

They really did. They really did. They knew they had to compete with things like the vampire diaries. Yeah. And charmed. So the whole first season is just who turned Scott. Spoiler alert. Turns out to be the uncle who's in the coma. Oh. How do you do that from the coma? He's not in a coma. He has arisen. But you don't know that. Sneaky!

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

End of season one. Allison learns her father is a hunter. Her father's, I won't kill him if you agree to never see him again. Starcross lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Here we go. Boom. Season one ends. Everybody expects Scott and Allison to be the stars of the show. Boom. Nope. It's Starek. Everybody wants Styles and Derek together. They start winning ship competitions everywhere. And MTV immediately leans into it. They start running campaigns. They start putting Dylan O'Brien and Tyler Hecklin on boats together. We're on a ship. Really hamming it up. Loving it. Loving the attention. Their fandom starts raising money for causes, starts doing all kinds of stuff under Steric's name. And again, they're really encouraging it. They're going on lives, all of them, they're all talking about their favorite ship being Starek. Even Holland Roden. And everybody is in on it. And Holland Roden's supposed to be the love interest of Styles. And then in between season one and season two, Tyler Hecklin goes from hot 17-year-old looking twink to hot 30-year-old looking twunk. Same guy. Yes, he just hit, I would call it a growth spurt, I guess. But he went from being ripped in swimmer form to being roided up almost. And I don't mean he took steroids, just he had that like look, all of a sudden he's got a full beard. All of a sudden he's just got hair everywhere. He just sprouted. And there was no hiding the fact that he is not, in fact, a teenage boy. So then I think they got scared because Styles is supposed to be 17 in the show. And now Tyler Heckland goes from looking 19 to looking 29. And they were like, if we did go there, it might look sus. And they just start changing up the math because in season one, they mention that Derek was a couple of years ahead of them in school, right? So now they're, I want to say they were juniors when the show starts. So you're like, oh, okay. So they're 16, 17, he's 19 or 20. Not a big deal. All of a sudden, they just start making the math further and further apart every season. And so that never happened. Like they never said that. And of course, people start going, what the fuck? And then I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden, the whole show turned on the steric fandom. Like Steric helped them win an award, and like Tyler Posey walked off stage and tossed the award. Real nasty.

SPEAKER_03:

What?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And then they started making fun of people who were shipping steric. They started openly mocking them on social media, calling them crazy, saying there was no reason for them to even think that steric was a thing. They got real nasty with it. And not everybody, but Tyler Posey was pretty vocal about it. And it could have just been sour grapes, because he is supposed to be the lead, the main character of the show. And it was very clearly becoming not about him. But they were still queer baiting. There's a scene where Styles is making out with this girl who in the beginning of the season was with another girl. And he's like, I thought you like girls. And she's like, I do. And he's like, but you also like boys. And she's like, Yeah. And he's like, oh, cool. And she's like, and you like girls? And he's like, yeah. And she's like, Do you like boys too? And he like pauses. Like he's thinking about it. And so everybody's like, okay, so they are telling us that he's at least questioning that he's bisexual, or at least questioning that he's bisexual. And they just keep doing this, but there's no payoff. But when they started openly mocking the steric fandom, the fandom left. And they took their ratings with them. And they basically took all of the lore from the show. They went to AO3 and they created their own fandom. They created their own lore, their own sh everything. They changed ships. They changed people who were together. They put other people together. They brought back people from the dead that should have never been killed off in the first place. Everybody was obsessed with the little mini pack that Derek puts together in season one. One of the girls had epilepsy and they constantly made fun of her. And then he obviously put her through the werewolf machine, and then all of a sudden she was like super hot and evil. Yeah, yeah. And everybody really loved her. They loved, God, I can't remember his name now, but they killed them all off. And people were upset about that. So on AO3, they resurrected them, they created their own packs, they changed things. And but around all of that, steric was the key. They were the big ship that had everybody held together. And there were hundreds of thousands of fanfics. Between AO3, between Wattpad, between fanfic.net, there was so many fics about them. And ratings on the show started to dip because nobody wanted to watch the show because they had felt betrayed. And if they had just queer baited everybody, at this point we're used to it. And they probably would have stuck around. And I want to say I watched till season five when Dylan O'Brien got hurt on the set of the Maze Runner. And he wasn't there for a whole season. I watched almost to the bitter end, but I was what do you call it? Disheartened, I guess. And it didn't matter anymore because it really became clear that they just didn't give a fuck about the people who were making the show. And it sucked because they had such great lore. They had, and when I was writing YA, I was writing all about like Celtic mythology. And Jeff Davis and I were basically playing in the same sandbox. Banshees, werewolves. We were writing about the same types of characters. So I was obsessed with it at first. But the more they talked shit about the steric fandom, the more people just stopped giving a shit about the show entirely, which sucked because the lore was still good. They were still towards the end, just like every show, they were phoning it in. But they were trying.

SPEAKER_00:

They were trying. Well, they shot themselves in the foot, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And then Tyler Hecklin got the role of Superman. So he started being written off the show. Dylan O'Brien was getting bigger and bigger because of the maze runner. He still kept coming back. But then when he got into that near fatal accident where he got sucked under the truck that was filming him during a stunt and fractured pretty much every bone in his face, he had to be gone for almost a year of doing reconstructive surgery. Um, yeah. And so they had to write him off the show for a little while. And then when he came back, his face wasn't a hundred percent, he was still swollen, he was still like, so they had him coming in and out, and it just, I don't know, it just didn't work. And it just didn't work. It makes me mad because it was such a good show, and I feel like they've ruined it with just their inability to handle the fact that people wanted a gay ship that they themselves not only hinted at, but even said, Oh, well, we might make it happen. We might make it happen.

SPEAKER_00:

I wonder what changed. Well, you said because he looked older.

SPEAKER_02:

I that was one thing. I also think probably just like they shoved Colton Haynes back in the closet, I think they were probably like, yeah, on screen it would look great, but in real life, Tyler Hecklin playing Superman, Dylan O'Brien playing this maze runner character, it might ruin your future to play a gay character, you know, now, this early in your career. Also, there's rumors that Tyler Hecklin is gay in real life, and they may have been worried that him playing a gay character would that narrative a little harder about him being gay in real life. Because there was always these blind items, heavily implying that he and his girlfriend at the time, who was remember in Pitch Perfect, the girl who's always flirting with Anna Kendricks, the main character. Oh, what the hell is her name? Britney Snow. Her name's Britney Snow in real life. I've never watched Pitch Perfect. Oh, really? Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Uh but anyway, Britney Snow and Tyler Heckland dated, I want to say for a few years, and everybody was like, they're not really dating, they're bearding for each other because she's the lesbian and he's gay, and they don't want anybody to know. I don't know if that's true or not.

SPEAKER_00:

People I'm just I'm gonna tell you, they say it about everybody, the gay lores in particular.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, I'm just saying, I wouldn't doubt if Taylor Swift is bisexual, but you can still like men too, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's also none of my business, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02:

It's none of my but I think that that might have had something to do with it. Maybe just their management was like, this could fuck up your career if you do it this early. Because Dylan O'Brien has played gay characters now. He's played gay characters, he's played trans characters, or not trans, cross-dressing characters. But anyway, he clear and I think his sister is queer, so I don't think that they had any problem malice, right, you know, or anything against gay characters in any way. I just think that somewhere along the way, somebody put the kibosh on it. And instead of just saying, Yeah, we would love to do it, but unfortunately, that's just not how we plotted the series, blah, blah, blah. There could have been a million different ways to handle it, but instead, somehow they chose to turn on the fandom that helped make them. And it really just caused the whole trajectory of the show to just crash and burn. Right. And even when they came back and they did the movie, they still pushed Styles and Derek together. They still made it where they were on screen a ton. Even though Styles is now with Lydia, even Lydia is making jokes about how Styles and Derek are always together, blah, blah, blah. How she's basically implying how she's like one of those girls that just has to deal with the fact that her man has another.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then they never give it to you. So then it's kind of it makes it icky.

SPEAKER_02:

And again, it's that same thing we talked about before. If you're going to do the unresolved sexual tension and you have no intention of giving them that payoff, don't do it. Because I tell you right now, if Jeff Davis ever just showed up with another show, I'd be like, no. Like, I still watch Criminal Minds, and now all of a sudden, Criminal Minds is gay as fuck. Just so you know, there wasn't a single gay to be found in the original Criminal Minds, but in the reboot of Criminal Minds, canonically straight characters are now gay. And good. Because you know what? People in the middle of their lives decide, I'm tired of pretending I'm not attracted to women.

SPEAKER_00:

Every day a lesbian is born. That's right. I haven't given up hope that I'm actually not straight.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, quite a dollar for every woman who sat at home hoping that one day they're just gonna look at another woman and be like, oh no, I am actually a lesbian, or I am bisexual.

SPEAKER_00:

Please. I've tried it quite a few times. And every time I was like, I wish I liked this so much. You so pretty.

SPEAKER_02:

I like anything. I don't really, I don't really have a preference. I learned that.

SPEAKER_01:

I know whore.

SPEAKER_02:

A celibate whore. I know, right? And the amount of sex I've had, I feel like I've really just earned the right to retire. Just ran out.

SPEAKER_00:

There's like a finite amount of sex someone should have. Because I disagree. I think you could be having a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02:

Because my numbers, and I guess my takeaway as far as authors go is for the love of God, do not disappoint your readers and don't queer bait. We see this a lot in Tradpub, where if you are querying a manuscript and you go to look for an agent, you see a ton of agents that are like, we're Looking for POC characters, people of color, we're looking for BIPOC authors, we're looking for queer characters, and somehow they pick authors writing queer characters who are straight white women who in no way have any queer history. And you're just how is it if you're looking for diversity? There's no diversity to be found. And you get, and I know it's out there because I have tons of indie friends who are queer. Indy is where India.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Safic in particular is really hard to find in like a Barnes and Noble traditionally published.

SPEAKER_02:

Savic because it doesn't sell and it sucks. But I don't, you know what it is? It's because straight women read gay romance, but straight women won't read lesbian romance. And again, it goes back to a lot. I know a lot of gay men like to say that women are fetishizing them. And I'm not saying that there aren't women out there, especially of a certain demographic, who do fetishize gay men. But a lot of women are reading MM romance because it allows them to read a story that has nothing to do with them. They don't have to identify with any character. They're just sitting back and watching two people fall in love without having to put themselves in either character's shoes. Which when you're reading straight romance, unfortunately, if you like dark romance, you are you basically have all kinds of misogyny stuffed down your throat, literally in some cases.

SPEAKER_00:

And they tell you to like it. So it's he fucked you with the gun over the side of the boat while the sharks were swarming, right? No offense. And if you're into that, I'm not yucking, you're yum. But it's a little rapey, and you know what, and that's fine. Emphasizing about things and doing them are different.

SPEAKER_02:

Fine. I don't care. I'm not at all about censoring what people enjoy or write. I don't care. Write anything you want. Absolutely. However, me personally, I like writing dark romance and I like writing BDSM romance, but I don't want to push a narrative that a lot of these BDSM straight romances push that says, if you're a sub in the bedroom, you're a sub in every aspect of your life. And that's just not true. Most people who are submissive are actually very dominant outside of the bedroom. And that is why they look for submission in the bedroom because they don't want to think anymore. They don't want to make decisions in the bedroom. They have to make decisions everywhere else. They just want to turn their brains off. And that never seems to be the case in these books. And if you've ever met actual Doms who know what they're doing and are actually into that lifestyle, these are normal people. Outside of the scene, they're just normal people. They aren't misogynistic in any way, shape, or form. They're just your boyfriend. They're just your Dom if you're not even in a relationship.

SPEAKER_00:

They are not their kinks, right? So even if you're a furry, if you're a foot guy, like I know we joke about the foot stuff, that's just what you're into. I don't know if you have any real control over it, but your kink isn't your personality.

SPEAKER_02:

Somebody who was forced to study like human sexuality when I was in nursing school, you don't. When you're between the ages of 10 and 12, they have this thing called, and it sounds so creepy, but it's called your love map. Okay. And whatever is happening when you hit that sort of puberty, it imprints in your brain. And so that is how people develop not only not necessarily just kinks, but preferences. Yeah. You know, some people like bigger women, some people like smaller, some people like bigger men, some people like smaller. And it can also warp into some people find feet sexually appealing.

SPEAKER_00:

It's something that's you stumble upon. Somebody's like, want to try this? And you're like, eh, no, and then you try it and you're like, wow. Well, it's like a meme more. Yeah, it's that meme where it's like me reading a new king. You know, where it's like, yeah, I'm into it. Also, to go back to reading male male, it's also where as someone who reads pretty traditionally all the time, it's always I gotta listen to at least a hundred to two hundred words of how tiny she is. How she's also gonna take over the world, obviously. Yeah, she's obviously the most powerful, she's just super skinny, she's so tiny, she's so beautiful, she's so this, she's gotta pick between this guy and that guy, and she's never gonna pick the blonde one. We already know what's going on there. She's gonna pick the guy who's like kind of sarcastic to her, but we're calling it dark romance. I don't know. But to your point, I think where you're just reading about two men fall in love. It isn't, and I think people oversexualize your books. There is sex in your books, but people aren't always reading it to fucking goon. You know what I mean? They're reading it because there's a story, it's eight fucking books. You think the whole thing is they're all just banging all the time? They're banging, but they're doing stuff. You have to have a plot. People really are patronizing when it comes to that. They call it gay porn, it's not gay porn, and a lot of people jokingly say that about my books.

SPEAKER_02:

Melissa used to say that all the time, yeah. Yeah, and it used to annoy the shit out of me because I don't write gay porn, I write gay romance, right? Gay romance, but because it's two men, we're calling it gay porn, and it it people think that excuses it in some way, or that makes it okay to read gay romance, but it's mostly just porn, which it to me is the exact opposite. Like somebody told me that they were just reading a gay romance for the sex, I'd be like, that's creepy and weird, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Or if a woman likes uh a drag in school and people are fucking it's smut, but like 99.99, they only fuck at the last 50 pages, and that's just diminishing things that women like, it's diminishing the LGBTQ community, it's just a way to subscribe to purity culture as a whole. Women shouldn't enjoy reading about sex, certainly shouldn't enjoy watching two men fall in love. Because why would you? Because you're not involved, as if our minds can't process something that doesn't involve us, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02:

Enjoy something unless we're the center of it. Which I mean some men can't enjoy something unless it's about them. I don't know, I don't know, you know, and I think that some men think that women sexualize gay romance because I think that men sexualize two women together. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I don't mean gay men because I'm that, but I think straight men see two women together and they're fine with it because they're like, oh no, two women together is hot.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because he thinks he could interrupt that. They're I get it. He thinks he could have that, you know what I mean? Two women being in love and in a committed relationship is not real to them. They can't conceptually oh who's the guy? There is no guy.

SPEAKER_02:

That's the point, babe. To to process it in their brain.

SPEAKER_00:

Not all straight guys, by the way. Of course not. We're not broad strokes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Whenever we're generalizing, I would like to think that the guys who aren't like that, the two that are listening, like I would like to think it's not you, Robert. Robert, we love you. Yeah, it's not you guys. We're not talking about you.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a certain group, and we know who they are. The Chads, the Brads, right? What Taylor said to the Chads, the Brads, and the Dads. Yep. That's who we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I got so tired of feeling gross when I read a romance novel. When, and again, I hate to say it, but it's after Fifty Shades showed up on the scene that it just I don't know that it started to feel misogynistic, or if it just shined such a big spotlight on it by being so over the top that it made me confront the fact. Remember the movie The Secretary? Okay, and here's the thing, I love the movie The Secretary.

SPEAKER_00:

I liked it too. Was it problematic?

SPEAKER_02:

It was it's problematic in that he started a BDS relationship with somebody without their consent and without any kind of abuse her a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

He used it to shift her from self-harm into a slightly healthier pain, sexuality.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then remember he made her sit at that desk and kiss herself and stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

But that wasn't really abuse. That was more I'm so deep into the BDSM culture. It was I want to say like a test. It was a way for her to prove, but also for her to be, look what I can do. I'm so good at being your sub that I will sit here until the end of time.

SPEAKER_00:

And then all her family comes in trying to convince her to get up.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I think he left because he always leaves, and he was just, yeah, I never fell in love with the others, and I left, and I am in love with her, but I have to leave because I'm the problem kind of thing. Yeah. She was, I don't care that you're a problem, kind of. I like your problems. I like your problems. Your problems and my problems were they're both two deeply fucked up people whose crazy matches each other. And that's my whole brand.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Two deeply fucked up people who are toxic for anybody else in the world whose crazy matches in a way that they're toxic works for them, you know? Because I don't think there's any such thing as a perfect relationship. You can have somebody who's perfect for you, but you can't really have somebody who's perfect. They don't exist. And if they did, they would annoy the fuck out of you. Because you're not nobody is, nobody's perfect. And if you somehow found somebody who behaves as if they were, there's probably something deeply, deeply wrong with them that they're hiding. Those are the people who one day you go into the freezer and suddenly there's six heads in there. Like those people are never really they have a second family, exactly. There's always something, and you find out at the will they appear, the weirder they turn out to be. So I like showing how toxic people fit together. I don't know, because again, I like the toxicity in fiction, I like dark romance, I don't like misogyny, I don't like toxic relationships in which they're mean to each other, they're too possessive of each other in a negative, abusive way. You can be toxic to everybody else, but you're not allowed to be toxic to your partner.

SPEAKER_00:

And so that's why I write I'm not into the I know a lot of people and if you're into him being like super like I get the mob romances and stuff because I'm I'm a straight white lady on book talk.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't like abusive possessiveness. The if I can't have you, nobody will kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like I'll literally I'll kill you.

SPEAKER_02:

Like literally you, yeah, I'll literally kill you. And some of them are into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm more into the I'll kill the world, I'll burn the world for you. Yeah, that's more my jam a lamb.

SPEAKER_02:

That's why I like writing the villains who are like it's the fuck everybody but you. Yeah, yeah, but also they're not hurting women, they're not hurting children, they're not out there hurting innocent people because I need my violence to have morals, and I just tried to write super immoral characters, and it just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't work for me. I my brain instantly just goes, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, because these are your characters, so like they're there are people in your brain. Yeah, like there are people in your brain, they're just existing little psychopaths bouncing around in your brain. So you're like, my baby wouldn't do that. Let me stop.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's the funny thing is I'm writing the sequel to um disciplinary action, which was my first Daddy Kink book that was full BDSM. And I decided to write the second book about the villain in the first book. So I had to make sure that he was basically going to suffer for what he did to my character in the first book. And you better, because you know they're gonna be waiting. He's going to suffer, but the he basically enters into a very I wanted to take Fifty Shades of Grey and do it my way. So it's a logic puzzle to me. It's like I have to make it work, but I have to make it work in a way that's not dark, but it's not icky.

SPEAKER_00:

It's dark, but it's not icky, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and it's fun for me to just keep towing the line a little bit further and further. Sorry, we got into a whole different aspect.

SPEAKER_00:

I think we stayed on topic more today than usual.

SPEAKER_02:

I really think we do, but that's just because I'm real heated about Twilight. It all again, it like our ship of the week. It's what could have been. It's the same thing with Castell. Your ship finally does become canon, and I'll say that there's a show on air called 911, and there's two characters in the show 911, Eddie and Buck, I think they are. And are you gonna say they're both firefighters? Maybe one of them's a paramedic. I'm not sure. I don't watch the show, so if I'm wrong, guys, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was right up your alley, so they're in the eye.

SPEAKER_02:

And everybody was, yeah, they're definitely into each other. They're definitely a ship, but they should be canon. And they were basically so anti-willing to make this happen. They created an entirely new spin-off called 911 Lone Star. It's basically takes place in Texas, and Rob Lowe plays the chief of the fire department, and he basically creates the queerest fire department in all of Texas. It's just BIPOC everywhere. You've got his son who's gay, you have a trans firefighter, you have a Muslim firefighter, his gay son is dating a police officer who is also gay. It was almost like they just over-corrected. They were like, Oh, you want gays? Here, but no, you can't make these guys because there's too many Republican, you know, white nationalists that love 911 that we can't have we can't have the gays because they'll revolt. Well, then the show got cancelled and it got picked up by a different network, and they were like, Oh, you want gay? We'll make them gay. And so they made one of the two of them gay, start dating a man, not the other one that they ship with, and everybody went, wait a minute, what the fuck? We said we wanted these two together, not that we just wanted them gay. But it seems like what they're doing is they wanted to put him in a relationship with a man so that the other one in the ship was like, Whoa, not only are you gay, but you're not gay for me. What the fuck, man? We're raising a child together, yeah. And so I think they're just slowly getting there, you know, they're trying to make it a realistic transition versus just like bippity bobbity-boo, now you're both gay. Yeah, you just catch each other in the middle. I'm only kind of watching it from the sidelines, so I don't have all the details. I watch a lot of shows via TikTok clips, yeah. But I can tell you that since they did start transitioning, the ratings went through the roof, everybody's talking about it. I know because I heard about it and I don't watch the show. So sometimes doing the thing that your audience wants is gonna save your show. Again, look at the vampire diaries. In she's canonically in the books with Stefan. It didn't work in the show. No, it didn't. The chemistry between her and Damon was too good, and it would not have been believable for her to look at Damon and have all of this sexual tension and then look at Stefan, who she didn't have any real chemistry with, and be like, No, I choose that guy. It just you would have had to have been Stefan was just hotter.

SPEAKER_00:

Damon was just hotter, even in the books. I was like, You're dumb. Yeah, you're dumb. I was 13, I was like, You're stupid.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, uh when Damon ends up with the fat redhead, my teenage heart was singing. I'm a fat redhead, I could have had Damon. This is me, she's writing about me. I could have had him, but honestly, and it's interesting because again, he ends up with Bonnie in the books, but you could see the chemistry between him and Bonnie in the show, too. But when you saw them as friends, you went, yeah, that still makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like no, but then they were like made it happen. You know what they she can't have, though, is a happy ending because we're gonna have we're gonna go ahead and kill him.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, I am telling you, and I might get in trouble for saying this, but it seems very clear that Julie Pleck had it out for Catgram.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's pretty canon. I think everybody knows I think she said it out loud. I think multiple cast members have said that out loud.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that she just, I don't know what it was. Now, I know with the guy who plays Alaric, it's just that he's a big fucking racist Trump supporter. Yeah, but he looks like one. That's yeah, I don't know if that's the same thing with Julie Pluck, uh, or if there was some other beef we don't know about.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

They seem determined to just fuck over Cat Graham, which is crazy to me because she's beautiful, she's an excellent actress, she can sing like fucking crazy. She speaks like five fucking languages. They could have done a million different things with her character. Yep. But instead, they killed Enzo. God damn it, they killed Enzo. I loved him so much.

SPEAKER_00:

It was I love that's why I'm more I at the end of the day, I was more of an originals fan than even the vampire diaries because the originals, oh, that is such a sexy show.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think it's because it's just the vampires are just hotter, they're just like and they they had less morality, you know what I mean? Like you never knew what they were gonna do. They tried to keep the morals in the vampire diaries because that's one, it was canon in the books, but also like even when Damon was doing something completely fucking off the wall, just balls out crazy. No, you still found a way to justify it in your head. You can't justify the shit that the originals did. Plus, I just love New Orleans, so like was just fucking insane.

SPEAKER_00:

He was freaking hot, Caroline. You're an idiot, Caroline. You're I would have folded. He wouldn't even how easy it would have been, he wouldn't have even wanted it. He'd have been like, hello, and I said, bite me.

SPEAKER_03:

Just fall over with her legs in the air.

SPEAKER_00:

Whatever you want, it's yours forever, 100,000 years.

SPEAKER_02:

That guy in my book Rogue, like I used him as inspo for the brother. That's the just the literal worst. And people were so mad at me for using him as the villain villain. I was like, Did you see Klaus's character?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't care. And you know when he did the right thing when the other vampires were trying to take over New Orleans and they got out of hands. Okay, Daddy Klaus had to handle that. And what was it? What's his brother's name? Because he could get it too. What's his brother's name? No, okay, Elijah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, that's mine. That's mine. Klaus, yes, I get it. I get the appeal, but Elijah that cop was such a gentleman until he wasn't. That man would murder eight people in a suit, in a suit, and just show up at your front door and find a way to get in.

SPEAKER_00:

He was that quiet, he could get it too. I mean, it's a why choose adventure at this point. Even the sister, yeah. Oh, sister. Poor Rebecca.

SPEAKER_02:

They were so. Mick had such a crush on her because she was in uh HTO. So was the girl who played Haley. The girl who played Haley and the girl who played Rebecca both played in HTOO. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember she loved that show, yeah. I remember Kaylee loved that show too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um ended up being the girls.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But Rebecca, poor. Is it are we have wait? Let's do the vampire.

SPEAKER_02:

Save this for the vampire.

SPEAKER_00:

We already just this is a two for one. This is longer than we usually go to.

SPEAKER_02:

This is basically three part. The 20, like there's like, I don't know, 20 minutes of it is the sound check on Patreon. But but yeah, no, we'll pick this up next week and we'll do the vampire directory.

SPEAKER_00:

And we have to capture Taylor and what is going on in my personal fandom right now.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, do you want to do Taylor Swift next week or do you want to do the Vampire Swift? Okay, we'll do Taylor Swift. They're already coming back around. They're already coming back around on Life of a Showgirl. You stupid newbie bitches.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that's what happens. They had they had to like they immediate backlash, and then a bunch of people were like, This isn't fucking about you. And then they realized that if they kept talking shit, they were gonna suddenly look like the assholes instead of calling her an asshole. But we're gonna get into that next week. Oh, I know all the lore, baby. And I'm going to do some research and listen to the new album so I at least have an appeal.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen to listen to the album, but don't do any research. Because I what do I know about Kaka Doo doo nothing when you're talking about it?

SPEAKER_02:

No, no, I meant just by research, I meant I'm gonna listen to the album. That's about all I have to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Watch some reactions from your favorite reactors.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh no, I can because I have Knox Hill's Patreon and he did the entire album, so I'll watch with him.

SPEAKER_00:

Elizabeth Taylor is one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, Elizabeth Taylor, the actress? Isn't she dead?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh The Fate of Ophelia, Opalite, Top Three. I don't love Cancelled. It's not, it's a no-skip album for me. All of them are. But Cancelled is not necessarily my favorite. Uh oh, we'll get into it.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, we'll get into it next week. Actually, I think personally, what I think your favorite song is gonna be is actually romantic. That's what I think is gonna be your favorite song. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, okay, we'll see. Anyway, if you liked this diatribe, please rate with you, subscribe, download. Downloads really help us. A lot of you showed up last week for episode four and brought those numbers. So thank you. Most people don't get yeah, most people don't get those numbers in a month. We got them in a week, so we appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00:

We love we love that you listen to our ramblings.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. You want more breakdowns if you want literally my emotional breakdown.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll can FaceTime you guys personally if you want. I usually have my breakdown around 5:30 when the kids like are really nuts and I'm trying to and I'm touched out. So no extra charge. I actually could use the support.

SPEAKER_02:

I can just I can just have her turn the cameras on at five. And if you want those breakdowns on the Google Home levels, and it's a literal breakdown.

SPEAKER_00:

It's just yeah, or the gentle parenting is left and uh things start getting questionable.

SPEAKER_02:

At the$10 tier, we do have all of the tech stuff that baby authors probably want answered, but don't know even what to look for. And then at the$25 level, we have my my breakdowns. No, my little obsession scrolls, they're like nine pages. They give you all kinds of tips and tricks and just fandom things you can do in your own books to help build your own fandoms. They're about nine pages. There's usually worksheets involved.

SPEAKER_00:

So if that's your thing, that tickles your pickle.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, exactly. That's the$25 tier. Tech is the$10 tier, and then the$5 tier is all of this without the ads, without the cuts, with all of our ums, likes, and uhs.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, that's fun, you guys. That's a benefit. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_02:

I do go through, but I do take some of the ums and likes out because I can't handle it.

SPEAKER_01:

You're alone.

SPEAKER_02:

And then I wonder if somebody's editing it's on the cutting room floor, babe, for sure. All right, guys, we will talk to you next week. Bye.

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Onley James

Host
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Shannon Ezzell

Co-host