We read the first half of the first new-to-Niamh saga this week, and have a great time with awful men, questionable gender politics, and high drama. Also, some violence is done to a bearman, don’t really like that but so it goes sometimes. Our chat about everything else continues as usual, as Niamh overtakes Em in Metaphor, we watch and read some stuff, and a conversation started last week gets finished as Em finally gets to their point about some stuff.

Things This Episode: The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, Even Though We're Adults, Infinity Nikki, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, gender and queerness talk, Metaphor: ReFantazio

Note: we meant to circle around to the discussion of Lapland and the Sami people but didn’t actually remember to do that. We’ll try to bring it up when it recurs next time but note that the region referred to in Sweden as Lapland is home to an indigenous people called the Sami people, and “Lapp” while common in the sagas is considered an offensive term to refer to these peoples. in my (Em) research, even Lapland itself seems like a disputed term depending on who you ask. That’s the short version of it, highly recommend people do research on their own!

See the show schedule here! This’ll tell you which versions of books and which sections of those books we’re reading each week.

Niamh podcasts on Export Audio with Ghost Divers, Ornate Stairwells, and Pondering Pootan. Fae posts on twitter @foxmomnia and on bluesky at foxmomnia.bsky.social

Em hosts Abnormal Mapping and Repertory Screenings on abnormalmapping.com and also is the Pokemon Master of Ceremonies on The Great Gundam Project. They post on twitter @em_being and on bluesky at polarbearsummer.online

Next episode: Hrólfs saga kraka, ch. 21-34; from The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, trans. Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics)