The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy finale

We finished the book! Or rather, the book just sort of finished. We discuss the strange, sudden ending of TIUTFFYE and gather our thoughts on the novel as a whole. Speaking of hole, there's one last explicit scene for the road in these chapters, and it sends us on a quest to understand what "spice levels" are. What makes a book spicy? Who defines the different levels? Have you shared a low-tongue-description kiss with a partner lately?

It's so good to be back! Thanks for listening.

Notes: we don't talk about it in detail but peppered throughout our book discussion are references to domestic abuse in the story; we mostly just talk about how tasteless we found it without going into detail but it's there. This is also, just generally, a pretty explicit episode!Lots of bodily function talk in this one.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 16-18

RIP Doctor Who. The Tardis crashed into a space embankment at two trillion miles per hour and he blew up. There's been precious little Potter news lately, so we spend some time chatting about how every major tentpole franchise seems to be falling apart these days and how we hope that it happens to Harry soon. Then we discuss our penultimate reading of TIUTFFYE, which... was pretty fun? It's a pleasant surprise, but it's also a tick upward right before the end of the book, so it could all come crashing down next week. We spend a while discussing this surprising turn of events, and then plan a vacation by sifting through a list of wizarding-themed AirBNB listings.

NOTES:

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/stays/arizona/themed-airbnb-az

https://www.purewow.com/travel/harry-potter-inspired-airbnb

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 13-15

Woof. Remember how last week we thought things might be improving? Forget we said any of that. This week we've got some just plain nasty stuff to dig through, but don't worry! We have some fun chatting about Final Fantasy, James Bond, and Dodgers fan Dobby too. Then we get right with the Lord and learn what sort of people are still writing Potter clickbait in 2026. It couldn't possibly be a conservative Christian getting mad about his kid learning that slavery is bad, could it? Well,,

Some notes:

-This week's reading features a lot of clumsy, tasteless depictions of sex work and attempted assault, and we spend most of our time going in on it. Nothing too specific, but it's a bit too broad to give a specific skippable timestamp. It's just kinda all bad this week

-"Fun" fact: ye olde revivalist preacher in the third segment was not only a slave owner, but I did some idle reading after the show and discovered that he also got fired from his parish for inappropriate behavior. In the 1700s! The more things change, eh?

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 9-12

We begin this episode with an utterly earth-shattering shock! Then we move on to discuss a really gross set of chapters. Only, these might be the best ones so far? Is this book improving, or are we just getting used to it? We chew on that for a while before checking in on another, much more expensive podcast to see what's going on over in Official Content World.

Notes: I do spoil The Mandalorian and Grogu in this, so if you want to remain un-Grogu'd skip to 26:30.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 7-9

We're a little rambunctious on this one. We love genre crap, but there's something in the air that's making us not click with the current epoch of genre crap. Are we just getting old, or is this stuff actually getting worse? Maybe this book just makes us cranky. Who could blame us when this week's reading includes an oddly offensive "crazy" professor, coworkers who want to sit on the floor and eat pretzels instead of doing their paperwork, and an honest to God entire chapter about a drunk guy playing with his nutsack? With apologies to Dungeon Crawler Carl fans, this media landscape has us stymied.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 4-6

We're getting nasty with it this week. On this episode we roll up our sleeves and stick our hands into a trio of very sexual but oddly unsexy chapters. There are a lot of penis jokes to discuss, but it's also a surprisingly good springboard to talk about what makes for interesting sexual tension between characters, the effectiveness of removing fanfiction from its sources, and the importance of making deliberate decisions when choosing a setting. There's also a lot of boner and cum gags too so sorry about that. And last but certainly not least, the return of Jack Sloper?

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, chapters 1-3

It's time. We've been incubating the idea for a new angle for the show for a long time now, and doing lots of research about the early days of the Potter fandom. But we've struggled a little, both with time and with the idea of how, exactly, to structure things moving forward. The answer hit us (to borrow the opening line of TIUTFFYE) like a knife: why not structure it like the same damn show we've loved doing for years now? So! Here we are. And what better way to anchor future discussions of the history and impact of Harry Potter on media and culture than by reading books that were once fanfics with the Potter stripped out? We're starting with The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, a bestselling romance novel unabashedly marketed as a former Dramione fic (Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ideal of Being In Love).

This first episode will be a bit of a bridge, because the third segment reading I selected is more contemporary. But you can expect our research to start showing up in the first and third segments! Anyway, this week we check out the world of the Grogu meal, attempt to identify original concepts vs renamed Potter concepts in TIUTFFYE, and learn why it's actually activism to read Dramione fanfiction in 2026. It's good to be back!

P.S there is a very funny fact about this episode I will reveal after it's been out for a day or two so please look forward to that

P.P.S this is just temporary art and a temporary theme song, but if you're curious the music is from my upcoming game 35 Electric

Mockingjay finale

We finally did it! We've finished the original Hunger Games trilogy, and boy do we have a lot to say about how little this series had to say. You would think there would be some big ideas in a story that ends with a horrific false flag atrocity, a member of the core love triangle making cluster munitions, and multiple megalomaniacs being betrayed, but... nope! Mostly it's about how sometimes you've just gotta do you. Or something.

We turn to the tantalizingly-titled 'Writing About War' interview that's intrigued us for the whole show for insights instead. We also chat about LitRPG fiction, "cozy" mysteries, pulp, and a little bit more about our upcoming project!

Mockingjay Act II

It's half sludge, half hunger this week! We check in with The Franchise's upcoming media and merchandising blitz, and then discuss the second act of Mockingjay, which... wow! That's a bit much! There's a lot of heavy stuff in this book that is not presented particularly well or interestingly, so make sure to check the content warnings below. Finally, we return to the world of 2010s fanfiction with a shocking third segment reveal.

(Content warning: Mockingjay introduces sex trafficking into the mix this act, and we don't love the way it's handled--it's typical corny thriller "I was actually a secret information broker" stuff, but it's a big chunk of the story so if you don't want to hear us dunking on that, skip 00: 40:48 to 1:02:25)

Mockingjay Act 1

We're back to it! We discuss act one of Mockingjay, a book that dares to ask: is filming wrestling promos just as bad as running a dystopian fiefdom? The people cry out for a teenage superhero to jump out in front of a smoke machine and say character select screen phrases, and only Katniss can answer the call.

We discuss the loaded imagery and its relationship to the more heightened plot movements, whether or not we care about the love triangle anymore, and ponder whether this is about anything specific or if the series has just gotten too far into the reality TV weeds. We also check in on a brand new Harry Potter fan subreddit dedicated to complaining about the TV show that doesn't exist yet.