Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / ReelShort Romance, Tritney on C-Dramas and the Bathtub Loophole, and Sherry Thomas Homework

Transcript

ReelShort Romance, Tritney on C-Dramas and the Bathtub Loophole, and Sherry Thomas Homework · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Sinjonabasker and Tyler McCall, and we're so
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and the
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: tropes to the book discreen adaptations, and of course the
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the genre
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: says about who we are and how we.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Love big stuff, important stuff.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I've been really interested lately in the full range of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: forms that romance media can take. A lot of what
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: we talk about on here is books, movies, TV. We've
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: dabbled in celebrity culture. But I do think that romance
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: appetites are vast and voracious. Increasingly, there's been this thing
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: happening in the background of romance media that I'm fascinated by.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: And they are these real shorts and verticals. Are you
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: getting these on your TikTok for you page? Of course,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I'm getting them on my TikTok for you page. Okay,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: for the uninitiated, about these videos which are sometimes featuring
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: real actors and sometimes featuring like AI. That are these
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: serialized short basically episodes in these kind of watt Pad
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: esque dramas. So I'll see stuff like the Alpha's Rejected
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Luna that's usually one of the AI ones but not
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: always Yeah, or like the Billionaire's Secret Baby. And these
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: are like very like sort of classic Harlequin romance titles
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: or category romance titles. But I'm seeing them now in
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: video form, which is fascinating. And if you look up
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: real shorts, many of these I'm sure will come up
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: on YouTube because lots of people are compiling these episodes
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: in full montages. Have you been watching these?
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I haven't.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I actually once got suckered into watching like probably about
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: ten minutes of one on TikTok, and I felt insane,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: but I was like, I need to know what happens next.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I also was really swept up in the phenomenon where
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: several months ago, one of the vertical actors who was
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: in one of these went like mega viral for his
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: yearning capacity.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you were tapped into this. I
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: don't know if I saw that one, and I've seen
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: a couple, I have to send it to you.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: His name is Nick Scanberg, and he was in one
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: called like Loving My Brother's Best Friend.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I think it was called the Plot is the title?
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Wait?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen this guy. I've seen this guy.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. So here's the thing too, A lot of these
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: actors are repurposed across several kinds of dramas. So he
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: has been in Loving my brother's girlfriend, but I'm sure
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: he's also been I think I saw him in a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: bully romance actually, like where he was like tutoring the bullies.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, I was like, I feel like I saw him
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in another one where the girl he had a crush
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: on in school was.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Like secretly a stripper. I didn't get into the full logistice. Wait,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: that's so tea, though.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're really telling on ourselves in terms
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of what the algorithm is serving us individually on these verticals.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, hey, yeah, I have notice that if there's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: like a guy, especially a guy that does really well,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: like that goes really viral or has like a fan base,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: they'll hire him for more verticals. Because there's another one
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that I've seen a bunch he was in like a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: bodyguard one.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I have been getting them. I'm so riveted by them.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I also, Sandra, did you know that I took acting classes?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I actually this is the first I'm hearing of it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Tyler the first I'm hearing of this, And there was
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a while where I was on backstage and actors' access,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: just like trying to see what I could make happen
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: for myself. And the amount of postings for those verticals
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: are through the roof.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Can I say?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I've been finding fascinating about this
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: is that the heat on some of these is really high.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because I think that parallel to category romance
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: comes up again, where like if you don't know, categories
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: are these like drops that publications like Harlequin and Mills
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and Boone do, where like every month they drop like
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: four or five short romance novels, And there are often
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: a set of authors who like write categories in particular,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: it's a specific form of the romance novel that is
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: like particular more trope oriented, and a lot of people
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: get their start in categories or specialize in categories as romance.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: But I think categories are also organized by like heat
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: level and tone and trope, And it seems in a
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: lot of ways like the real shorts economy is similarly
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: attempting to cater to consumer interests by giving you Like
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I saw one actor who I was like, oh, you
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: have played like like a by top in like three
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: of these dramas. Like people just see you and see
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: big hairy chest and they're like, you are a bisexual top.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The question is like, because some of these are quite spicy,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Like some of those I'm getting are like crazy crazy spicy,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Like how much can they get away with because it's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a vertical.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I'd be curious because I think I've seen suggestion of
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of sex where I'm like, oh, this is
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: going to get really spicy, but I can't actually see
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the full thing on TikTok.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to pay for that. You have to
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: pay for the part of it. Yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: There are like specific apps that are also producing things
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: like this. I think Galatea might be an example of
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: one of them, and I think there's a real shorts
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: app also there is.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a friend of mine who is an actor sent
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: me a listing that he'd seen, really just asking me
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: if he should submit for it, like as a joke.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But I was reading the synopsis of these characters and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, this sounds like very similar to Sierra
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Simone's American Queen Trilogy, the New Camelon Trilogy. Yeah, I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: was like, this plot sounds so familiar. It sounds like
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: very similar to this thing I read. And then I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: pull it up and turns out, lo and behold, this
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: vertical company had optioned the rights to her Leonese's trilogy. Wow,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: it's like literally a Sarah Smone adaptation, but it's a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: vertical geez yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Which is so interesting.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I wonder what the appeal is for romance writers to
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: allow their stuff to be optioned in this way.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why I'm wondering if you can get a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: little spicier, because something like that is high level spicy
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in a way that I think most traditional even like
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the spiciest and like a heated rivalry aptation or like people.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: We mean, even the spiciest scenes are going to get
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in kind of more contemporary romcoms aren't going to hit
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: like threesome between the president, his wife and his vice
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: president spoiler alert if you haven't read the American Queen trilogy.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I think maybe on verticals you can you can get
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: into that more. And like that seems like an audience
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that you've already kind of primed the pump, so to speak.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: What a phrase I just came up with incredible turn
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of phrase.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Of all the phrases I could have used for that,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled that's the one my brain shows. But yeah,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: it just seems like an audience that's like already primed.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: For that as well. So I feel like there's a
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: good opportunity for crossover there. There's a really.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Interesting article that was published in Publishers Weekly about Harlequin
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: agreeing to co produce AI generated micro dramas. They collaborated
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: with a company called dash Verse to make a bunch
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: of like AI serial short form videos. But the complicated
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: piece of this I remember seeing on Threads at the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: time or Twitter at the time that the Harlequin authors
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: whose work had been drawn into this agreement were not
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: aware they were not made aware that their stories were
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: about to be adapted via AI platform, which I think
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: is really ethically dubious.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought of that, because the AI obviously
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: has to scrape the capacity to tell the story from somewhere.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering what the potential is here, because right now
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's so early in like what verticals are, is there
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: potential there for it to be kind of the next
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: wave of like where romance adaptations go well.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I think my feeling about that is that romance adaptations
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: are clearly an underserved market, and that the fulfillment of
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: a particular kind of consumer need speaks to the fact that,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: like broader trends in producing art, are neglectful of the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: appetites of this entire class of consumer.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: It clearly articulates the degree to.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Which there is demand for interesting love stories one way
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: or another, and like the tropier and the soapier that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: It is, it's there's still appetite for it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Not saying that everybody who reads and loves romance wants
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: exactly that or loves these shorts in general, I would
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: say like, I've watched a few, and I've been compelled
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: by some of them, but I don't know that the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: writing has hooked me enough to be like, let me
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: go purchase a subscription.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Basically, this is something that I feel like I'm keeping
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: an eye out for. My finger is on the pulse.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: My finger is on the pulse. I will say.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: The other thing that real shorts remind me of is
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: web tunes and web comics, which are also serialized stories.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Of course, webtunes and web comics by and large are
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: made by artists and writers, often from East Asia, though
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: not always. And there's something also about the serialized form
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: of the webcomic that I think real shorts really benefits from.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: But I also I think it's.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Worth talking about web tunes and webcomics because our next
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: guest is Tritney, who is a dear friend of mine
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: and mutual on TikTok, who talks about like the cutting
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: edge of romance in many ways, shapes and forms. She's
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: also one of the funniest people I know, and she
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: put me on to see dramas or Chinese dramas.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people at this point have
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: heard of K dramas.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I think there was a big moment where everybody was
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: watching Crash Landing on You, the contemporary K drama on Netflix.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: But there's also a whole subset of Chinese produced dramas
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: that Tritney put me onto that borrow bits and pieces
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: of inspiration from webcomics and web tunes to tell incredibly
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: romantic stories.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And I have just begun to dabble in this.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I am by no means a pro, but I'm really
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: excited to have her on as an expert to tell
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: us about, you know, all of the many shapes and
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: forms that romance can take.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Tritty, Thank you so much for coming on.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I am so so so excited to be talking all
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: things see drama with you. You have been spreading the
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: good word and gospel of sea dramas to all of
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: your friends and on social media for months now. Right, okay,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: how long have you been watching sea dramas? How long
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: have you been thinking about them, talking about them, et cetera.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: I have been watching them for as long as I
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: can remember, like probably from the wound.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: To prep for this, I watched the first few episodes
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: of The Pursuit of Jade, which is a sea drama
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: that is on Netflix, which is a historical about a
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: woman who is a pig butcher and ends up taking
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: in this like very regal looking man who was injured
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: somehow in the snow, like she takes him in to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: take care of him, and they end up in a
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: marriage of convenience. This is like not as all of
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: this happens in the first four episodes out of a
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: forty episode season, which is like, I mean season it
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: ends with the fortieth episode, so like very early on
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: marriage of convenience premise. Historically, it seems like a lot
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: of sea dramas are historicals.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: A lot of them are so much where they've built
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: full entire sets for different dynasties over the years. You
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: literally have full sets for every possible dynasty. Kup. Sea
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: dramas get filmed very quickly too. They're in and out
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: of production within months because that's just how fast they're
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: able to.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Do it now, which is forty hours of content, by
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the way, four zero hours.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, so wait, let me ask it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I have not invested in this at all, so as
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a total newbie, when you're saying forty episodes, each episode
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: is an hour long.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: About forty five minutes, is okay?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, all right, but it's that is a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: contained like it's always a self contained story, right. But
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: they make so many of them that now they have
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: established sets for every possible dynasty that they can just
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: use at any.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Time exactly and every possible yea, every possible dynasty, every
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: possible like fantastical world. I'm sure they're building more. It
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: is a very very very big and well invested industry.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Is the sea drama stuff on Netflix a relatively new thing.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Were you like always watching it on streaming platforms or yeah, okay.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: So back in the day it's DVDs tvds And then
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: they did hit online of sort like there were streaming
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: on television, first on Chinese specific streaming for domestic but
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: also for international audience.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: And then Western streaming like Netflix and whatnot have started
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: picking them up because they're like, oh, hey, there's a
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: big audience for this.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: What do you think is so romantic about them?
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: A good chunk of Sea dramas are novel adaptations. The
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: last dozen Sea dramas I've watched, I'm pretty sure all
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: of them have a novel associated with them.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Pursuit of jadas too write.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Pursuit of Data is a novel. These are romance novels.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: And I do want to take a step back, and
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I say and to say that Sea dramas are kind
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: of broadly refers to Chinese media like broadcasted television, right,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: which encompasses a wide variety of genres. But here we're
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: specifically talking about romance as a genre within Chinese television,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: and that I would say encompasses roughly a third of
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: everything that gets produced, which is significant.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Which is a lot.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: That is a market that this really trusts that two
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: people falling in love. It's like worth being told again
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: and again and again and again. You know what is
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: a yeah, and they're so right for that. So I
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: wouldn't even compare it to Western TV and media, right,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I would compare it to Western romance publishing. It's easier
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: to wrap your head around it, and you're thinking about
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: it more like walking into a romance bookstore. There are
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: constantly new releases, there are familiar tropes you know, right,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: and you know it's marketable. It's a second chance. The
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: marriage convenience, which is big, right, marriage and historical just
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: kind of goes hand in hand. You're familiar with that
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: within like the western publishing world. Two the same case
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: for sea drama.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Can I also ask about the like physical contact, intimacy,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: sex like chemistry, how hot do these get and like
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: how much physical touch is there? And I'm asking this
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: partially because my background is that, like I've seen some
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: K dramas and I feel like K dramas historically there's
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: like a kiss in episode thirty eight, obviously, like any
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: media made in China's state sponsored media, And I'm curious
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: if there's like censorship in the picture with the production
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: of these, or what the tone is in terms of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: how graphic these get.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: Television in China typically operates under creative restrictions that shape
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: how relationships are portrayed. Generally speaking, everything kind of needs
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: to operate somewhere in the PG. Thirteen ish. But that
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: being said, what fascinates me is how incredibly inventive writers
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: have gotten within those boundaries. A lot of these women's
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: dramas are adapted from not most that have a lot
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: more explicit sex on page. So then the adaptation process
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: kind of becomes so how do we preserve that when
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: we can't depict it? And so you start seeing really
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: creative stuff. You start seeing a lot of wound dressing,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: historical romance, like it does not matter, someone is always
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: getting hurt. There are a lot of hand things happening,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: not unlike you know, mister Darcy's hand thing. You'll have
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: characters taking off their clothes and using their bare body
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: for like heat to fight against like hypothermia. In ways,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: maybe you are being with hell certain things, but in
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of ways you are being fed in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: mid most creative way.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Also, Tritty can you please explain the bathtub exxumption.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So, somewhere along the way, writers have found that, hey,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: if we throw in a bathtub scene, it passes all
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: kinds of state censorship. And so you'll have fighting in
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: the bathtub, You'll have people chasing each other, pulling off
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: clothes in the bathtub, will have choking in the past,
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: you will have kissing in the bathtub.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I assume based again that on the fact that that's
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: all sponsored by the Chinese state.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: They're all straight.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: That's a fun one, Okay, So you do have bls, right,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: that's a that's entire, an entire category which boys love.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: There are a couple of very popular bels that got
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: adapted into screens.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: One of it is.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: Called The Untamed, arguably one of the most popular bl
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: in China and Asia in the Western market too, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: it is one of the most romantic thing I've ever
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: seen in my entire life. I think about it all
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: If you could recommend three for average American viewer who
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: loves romance novels and is like looking to crack the market,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to keep this as as what has the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: broadest appeal.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Where would you start somebody pres it of Jade.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: It's been making waves these past few months as a
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: lot of people's first drama up for seat drama. I
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: see the appeal some merit of convenience, some small town romance,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: you know, very buttkicking wife, you know. I think it's
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: a great one for starter. Love in the clouds, fantastical.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: There's some hidden identities also, a marriage of convenience, some
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: very flirty, slutty situations, a very flirty slutty man, a
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: big liar girlfriend, and it just extremely forgiving boyfriend and
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: they're not even together. So I would put that on
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: the list, and I think it's a great one, especially
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: if you like a little bit of like fantastical to it,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: some magic, some powers. There also comes contemporary, and I
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: want to hit on those. I'm going to put two
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: kind of together. One is Hidden Love. It's an age gap,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: it's the brother's best friend. It's dealt with a lot
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: of teasing. It's really fun and it's a very light
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: one that a lot of people love for very good reasons,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: like I adore it. And so there's another drama called
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: The First Frost. It is a slow bird in the beginning,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: it is big I don't know if you guys are
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: big like Hurt Comfort, which for people, it's a lot
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: of pain, trauma, hurt followed by a lot of comfort
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: to that it's exactly as it sounds, and it is
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: one of my favorite And this one is like hurt
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Comfort final boss.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, you're talking to two people who have
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: spent quite a bit of time and fandom. Hurt Comfort
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: is actually my jam.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: This is such a fun ecosystem you have access to, right,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: it is just romance.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: There's room for all kinds of romance.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: There's rooms for all kinds of plots, all kinds of tropes.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: And alongside all kinds of plots and all kinds of tropes,
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: you have stunning cinematography and settings and scenes. And then
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: you have the eyes. Guys, eyes have never existed before
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: or after see dramas, with the exception of maybe Shane Hollander.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: He gets a past, that's true, beautiful man.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: But everybody else can take their eyes and go home.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: This is so specific.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: None of our eyes do whatever their eyes do.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: It's so I'm not.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: The thing is, if you start watching, you guys will
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: There's just so much.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: The eyes just do so much work.
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: Do you know something the language of a longing gaze
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: does transcend national boundaries like a beautiful yearning look transcends
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: all absolution states.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: You don't needles for that, you don't eyes.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Incredible, Triny, thank you so much for this like incredibly
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: persuasive case for sea dramas.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm compelled. I'm compelled. I've done my job.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: I was so glad that we had a chance to
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: talk to Trittany. She's so lovely.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: She's such an expert in so many different kinds of
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: romance that people don't even think of as being romance media.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, after talking about real shorts and see dramas,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: we got to go back.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: To the stuff I know best.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: We're continuing our series of assigning homework today, I assigned
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Tyler homework. Specifically, I assigned her to read the iconic
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Sherry Thomas novel Private Arrangements. Private Arrangements follows Gigi Roland
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: and Camden Saybrook. Gigi is an heiress. Camden is a
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: man that she falls in love with immediately upon laying
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: eyes on him as a teenager.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: She is an.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Ambitious, manipulative incredibly clever woman and in the process of
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: falling in love with him, finds out that he is
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: betrothed sort of de facto to another woman, and that
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: is untenable for her. She kind of manipulates him and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: arranges through fraudulent circumstances for him to marry her. He
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: finds out about this betrayal the night of their wedding,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: so they are actually already wed, and then he finds
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: out that she is allied to him to get them
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: to get married, and he like ends their relationship and
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: they continue being married because divorce isn't that easy in
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: this period, but they do not live together, so Gigi
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: has her heart broken the night of her own wedding
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: because she and Camden can't be together to this novel
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: take place when Gigi decides years and years and years
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: later that it's time for her to move on with
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a perfectly nice man who she doesn't love but likes,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and she asks him formally for a divorce and he
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: returns to town and says that he will divorce her
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: once she has given him an air. So it's kind
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: of a sex packed slash second chance romance slash enemies
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: to lovers and It's one of my very favorite historical
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: romances of all time. I assigned it to Tyler because
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I think it is absolutely essential for all romance readers
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: to read at least one Cherry Thomas novel in their lives,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: because she is a master of her craft. She taught
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: herself English by reading and writing romance novels. I'm really
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: leading you here where I'm like, you have to like.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: It, but I do actually really want to know. I
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: want to know what did you think, Tyler. I loved
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: it so much. I had so many thoughts about this.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: First of all, I sent you sorry for this very
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: like boomer coded way of just sending you this information.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: But I was reading it on my kindle.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: If anybody from Amazon is listening, I wish I could
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: take a screenshot from a kindle and send it to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: people instead of taking a photo of my kindle. Anyways,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that's what I did here, is I took a photo
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: of my kindle because it's this line early in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: book and they're arguing back and forth and she's like,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: just turn off the lights and pretend it's someone else,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and he says, it's no use.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: You breathe and I'll know it's you. That's where I
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: gotta go.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's that's what romance dreams are made of.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: You will breathe and I'll know it's you. And that's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: thirty percent in they haven't touched each other yet. I'm like, oh,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: this is so good, Like so much of the language
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is great.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Also, second chance is not my trope of choice.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And actually, like I kind of only read second chance
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: now if it's by an author that I really like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: and trust, cause I find second chances. I guess that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just not a second chance diva. I guess I'm
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a one and done girl. Like that's it, you got
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: your shot, You're out. So it's hard for me to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: get locked in. And I was so locked in on
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: this and I was like, I love this so much.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And my takeaway whatever I would catch myself thinking that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and be like I'm having so much fun, is like, yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: everyone should be reading historicals because like, oh yeah, I
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: think more people would understand what purpose like tropes and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: relationships serve if they had that historical framework of like
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: there are so many rules and regulations in place at
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a society level that like this is why people aren't
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: honest with each other. This is why people miscommunicate with
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: each other. This is why people like accidentally fall in
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and out of love with each other or have these
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: things happen, because it provides such a literal, like ironclad framework,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: whereas like in contemporary society, I think those constraints still exist,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: but it's like much harder to point to and be like, well,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: these are the these are the rules, or the power
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: dynamics at play or whatever, and so like that That's
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: how I felt reading this, was like, well, like a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: divorce is going to be a challenging proposition for these people,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and as far as I'm aware, couples therapists were not
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in play in the nineteenth century English society. And this
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: idea that it would be too embarrassing, like he found
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: out that she'd done this horrible thing, and like, on
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the one hand, it would be too embarrassing to break
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: off the engagement, but also a way to like punish
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: her is to lock her into this marriage. And I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: loved her so much. I loved how manipulative is the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: correct word. It reminds me of Lady Gaga quote. I
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: don't believe in the glorification of murder. I do believe
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: in the empowerment of women.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: That's such a good way to describe Gigi.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I don't believe in the glorification of forging a letter
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to the man you're in love with so that he
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: breaks off an engagement with somebody else. I do believe
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: in the empowerment of women, like get what you want.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: And I think part of the.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Other reason why I wanted to assign this to you,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: on top of the fact that like, nobody can write
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: a story like this the way that Cherry Thomas does,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: the more specific piece of it is this is a
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: novel where the main characters are really willing to hurt
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: each other and are able to do so over and over,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: and that doesn't stand in the way of you believing
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and they're happily ever after, which I think is a
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: very specific kind of alchemy that a really skilled writer
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: is able to pull off. The second piece of it
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: is that Gigi is ambitious and manipulative, and she also
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: faces consequences for her actions. Both characters, in many ways
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: experience consequences for their actions, for the pettiness of their grudge,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the pettiness of their distance from each other, and I
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: think that's part of what makes it feel satisfying is
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: that it's not hurt without consequence. There is like resulting
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: action that feels logical and sensible. And the other piece
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: of it is that she's able to walk this really
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: fine line of making Gigi this like eminently human character,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: where also she's getting a lot of blame for this.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Camden does plenty of really messed up so this book
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: as well, for sure, But Gigi is a teenager when.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: All of this comes to past.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: She's like eighteen or nineteen, and she's an heiress who
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: has been repeatedly courted by men who have actually actively
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: conspired to kill her for her fortune, marry her, kill her,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: take her money, run away, And so she begins the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: novel with very little trust in other people and is
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: a deeply sympathetic character, I think because her love and
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: affection for Camden is the thing that helps restore her
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: trust in other people, and the only way that she
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: knows how to protect herself in an environment that has
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: been so historically manipulative is to manipulate him like it
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: is a natural outcome of what she has experienced as
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: a child basically who has been put in really unfavorable circumstances.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: So I think all of those things make it such
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a gorgeous book on a craft level. I think the
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: other thing that I love about it is that she's
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: just like Sherry Thomas, just writes a pleasurable sentence, like yes,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: she writes a sentence that is just fun to read.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: On the most granular level, I still remember there's a
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: part in the book where Camden is referring to Gg's
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: new boyfriend and I think says something to the effect
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: of him being as dense as Nestle Road.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Pudding, Like Yeah.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: There are so many creative ways in this book to
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: call characters stupid. Yeah, And it's so funny. It's so funny.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It's such a funny book too. All this on top
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: of the second chance, on top of the betrayal. And
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: one last thing that I think it does that very
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: few contemporaries are willing to do Gigi and Camden are
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: not faithful to each other in this period of separations
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: being married.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think a lot.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Of people see cheating as like a huge, unforgivable no
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: no in romance. This book was published in two thousand
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and eight. It is an icon of the genre. There
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: is cheating, there's infidelity, and it is instrumental to how
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: the plot moves in so many ways.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: It is remarkable.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: That is one of the things that I also find
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: really compelling about it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Also, it's not a long book.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: No, this is so tightly rare you can you can
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: finish it in a sitting.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: As you can probably tell from our discussion, there's a
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: lot to say about it, a lot to say.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Would you recommend it? Oh, I would absolutely recommend it.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, And that's why everyone should just be reading historical
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: That's how many time this How many times have we
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: said this on the pod about four hundred times? People
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: are gonna be like, please.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Stop, Okay, we'll stop when you start reading historicals exactly.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And that's the show, and that's the that's the show.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Call us and leave us a voicemail with your thoughts
• 28:49
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• 28:53
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  Speaker 1: The Radio eight three one podcast is a production of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, hosted by Sanjanabascar and Tyler McCall. The show
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: is produced by Liz Smith and for iHeart. Our supervising
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: producer is Emily Meronoff special thanks to the whole iHeart
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: team and especially Ali Perry and Alison Kanter Graber. Our
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: executive producers are Claire Maser and Erica Serulo. Our music
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: is Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is What
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: You Do by Alibi. We'll be sharing love here again
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: next week