Parlor of the Paranormal: Five Moons Rising

Chelsea and Cristina were once again forced to read a wereworlf lesbian romance from their friend Celeste. Some of the books Celeste has had us read have been very good! This...is not one of them. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello Christia, Hello Chelsea, and hello listeners. Welcome to Parlor
of the Parormal.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Spooky par Spooky Parlor, spooky parlor, where Celest once again
has forced us to read one of her lesbian werewolf novels.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
There was a deal.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
You were bought.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
I was bought.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Chelsea was bought. This isn't a forced situation.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Celeste traded several boxes of Australian tim Tams for this.
I got one Tim Tam. I think we still have
some left. Yeah, well I've already.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Read the book.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Still you can still partake in the Timtam the bribe. Yeah,
I can still enjoy the fruit to eat them all
at once, So I'm trying to savor them. U uh huh.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
It helps that around the time I got the Timtam's
Girl Scout cookie season was among.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So you had you were able to sort of spread
it out, you could enjoy some both. Yeah. Yeah, very good,
very good.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Also, I don't have like an exceptional sweet tooth, so
I'm not someone who will sit there and eat cookies.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I am. I don't have an exceptional sweet tooth, but
for some reason, whenever I get cookies, I eat them
all in one sitting and then never again for like
six months. And then I buy more cookies and I
eat them all in one sitting, like.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Like bare hibernation behavior where.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's like cookies but cookies, where it's like I'm gonna
eat all of these at once so that I can
survive the winter, I guess, and then never again for
six months. All right, that's my cookie habit. Okay, yeah,
but yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
And so I played D and D with Celest yesterday,
uh huh uh huh, and I informed her that she
has to answer for her crimes on this pot that's fair.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And this is the book haig where she has to
go and face the council.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Because now, listen, there are two books that she had
us read that we enjoyed. Well, one I enjoyed because
I wasn't able to read the other one because.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
It was a fraught time in my life. So here's
the deal I made with Celeste. I told Celeste, or
Celeste told me she will come onto this podcast onto
parlor if I end up reading that book. Now, I
did say, we're not going to do another parlor on
that book. We are did one. I just wasn't in it.
This was little dip Chris's Little Dip, which I remember
enjoying as a book.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
It was you and Katie did that parlor. Yes, so
I perfectly fine with reading that book after the fact. Again,
not going to do another parlor on it. A bit
too redundant. But I said, if I read that book,
you have to come onto parlor and answer for your crimes.
Now my question now that we're well we, I say we,

(02:55):
but Christina's like, it's all you is that I'm not
sure if I want to make her read a terrible
heterosexual romance.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
You have an opinion about this? Okay, Oh right, right,
I did have an opinion about this, right because, but
please continue to say what.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Your options were.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
So my options were, I don't know if I should
make her read like a terrible romance novel that I
know of, just to have her suffer like she made
us suffer, or if I want her to read like
a good heterosexual romance novel.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
But then you had a better idea where I said,
we could find a good lesbian werewolf romance novel two
for her to read, so we can be like girl
get standards.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
So letste get off the floor. This is what you
could be enjoying.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
But here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
I also understand being on the floor. I have enjoyed
many things that are absolute fucking tracks. You're eating, you're eating.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
The food that's on the floor. Could be at the table, Chelsea.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And there are times when I am at the table,
I'm shaking my head. There are I'm just I know,
I'm not doubting you. I'm just saying, why eat the
floor food? White Food's fun? Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes is
what I want.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Sometimes, like Akatar is not I'm not gonna say Akatar's
floor food.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I am gonna say it's kid's table. I was literally
just about to say, actually that it is the kid's table.
It's like you're you're at the kids table with your
like knife and fork that don't with the frozen peas
and chicken nuggies. Yeah, and the chicken nuggies. I get that.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
And I'm not telling you that you're wrong to be
the kid's table.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
But there are some things that I'm like, this is
absolutely floor food.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
There was one It's a it's a series light Lark,
and I was like, this is the worst of the worst,
to the point where like I read the first two
and I was like, all right, let's read the third one.
And I tried, and I was like, wow, I can't
get it.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Got worse. I can't get through this. So that does happen. Well,
I'll read the absolute fucking bottom of the barrel. That's fine,
and I get it.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
I get wanting that in your life because sometimes it's
like cathartic to eat absolute trash.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm gonna like, I don't want to spoil my thoughts
on this book too much, and we can, we can,
We'll get into it because we read at Celestie Hess.
Celeste bribed Chelsea specifically to make us read Five Moons
Rising by I believe it's pronounced Lisa. It's spelled I
L I S E. But I think it's still pronounced
Lisa or possibly lying.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
I will say, just the name of it worried me.
Five Moon's Rising, Yeah, I don't know why that. It
brings to mind that like four werewolf.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
T shirt you lot that three wolf moon? Yeah, yeah,
moon moon. But it's like I got bitter shirt which
is called the Alpha Inside, which is just a bunch
of a bunch of like airbrushed werewolves all howling at
a moon and one of them is like on its knees,
ripping its shirt off. Incredible, And that's the energy that
I think that this book brings. I'm not gonna say

(05:46):
that five Moons Rising by I think Lisa mctagg is
how it's pronounced. I'm not gonna say that this is
four food. I'm gonna say it would.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Be that one that she made us read where they
were lesbians but still had a strict gender binary.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'm gonna say that this is like you dropped cheese
fries and then quickly said five second rule and you
ate it. Yeah, and like I'm looking at you like
I guess, but like I wouldn't. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I'm saying that's what this is. It's not fully for food.
So we are going to because otherwise we would ask

(06:23):
Celest what's a good? Wherewillf lesbian? I'm never gonna ask
Celeste what's a good? What are you talking about? She's
given us two that are good, but she's given us
three that are bad. That's true. The trip record is bad,
so I think it's more than three. But anyway, so
in fact, I know it's more than three. Anyway, So uh,

(06:45):
we have decided to go to the romanticy girlies to
not we not we Okay, I don't know where to
find them. Chelsea said, I'm gonna go ask the Romantaicy
gurlies about a good romance.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
We're not gonna just go with whatever they tell us. Guys,
also do research.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Because because I said, I can't trust you trust it,
I cannot trust them.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
They are eating off the floor like sheep.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
They are. They are grazing the leftovers them. I'm not
I don't go to book talk. I don't know what
is going on over there. I don't want to know
what's going on. I don't trust Romanticy. I don't trust
romanticy girlies as a whole, as like individuals, and that's
in that space.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Absolutely as a whole, do not trust it.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's fair.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
But I think that's a good place for us to
start to try and find a book, all right, And
that's what we're gonna do.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's what's gonna happen. It's gonna we can find a
good lesbian werewolf novel. If you have recommendations, listener, please
let us know. We have to find one that's less
has not read, that is good of good quality.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
I asked that it has some.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Wooing in it. For the love of God, please, can
we have a romance novel with some wooing in it? Yes?

Speaker 3 (07:50):
I just I don't ask for much.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
I really don't think you do. I don't ask for much.
Why can't there be wooing? Come on, guys, they were
wooing an akatar. There's tears in my eyes, Chelsea. I'm like,
it's not the wooing that was the problem, you know,
you know it, Chelsea.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Fighting for my life over here, for my trash.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I'm not ripping it out of her. I'm looking at
you like, Okay, you're eating your your microwave still cold
in the middle, freaking dino chicken nug You know. Kids,
sometimes that's what you want. And I'm like, you know
what you do, you kid, I'm gonna slip some vitamins
on your plate, flint snowemone. Yeah, they're the gummy kind.
Oh even better. Yeah. Anyway, So, yeah, we read five

(08:35):
Moons Rising. We did We did do that. Yeah, Chelsea
got like ninety eight percent of the way through.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
I do this thing where I forget that we have
to read a book when it's not a book that
I've recommended, and I sped read it well, because most
of these books, I'll read them at one and a
half speed. Not the dramatic readings because that's a little
bit different, but anything that's just like a straight.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
We often do the mic the audio books for them.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, anything that's just like a straight audiobook, I tend
to read at one and a half speed because otherwise
I'm just like.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Fuck, go faster. They ADHD come out, the ADHD come out.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
So I speedwrit it the last couple of days and
I got five minutes left, and at that point Christina
showed up and I was like, fuck it, it's fine.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
So here we are. So here we are with this book.
And so, as a non spoilery summary of this book,
the premise is that there is we live in a world.
It's the normal world, but I live in a society.
We live weird in a society. We live in a
world which has a secret, magical underworld to it, where

(09:42):
there are, unbeknownst the majority of people, mystical magical creatures
living amongst us. And there is a shady government organization
made up of Hunter super soldiers whose job it is
to make sure that the magical creatures do not harm
humanity too much. I just realized something, and I'm gonna
look it up. Keep going.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
One of the love interests is one of these hunters.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Her name is Mary Alice and her code name is Malice. Yes,
and that immediately, yep, that the fuck that's I was like, Oh,
we're starting. How strong. The other member of this love situation,
I guess is the lesbian were wolf in question. I
mean they're both lesbians. I had a feeling, uh huh.

(10:28):
So I went on Goodreads. Huh, there's four of them.
I knew that there were more of this. I knew
that this was a series. Well, you want to guess
what it has on Goodreads. I want to guess it's
over three, but not four. I want to say it's
like three point six something. Yeah, you got it almost
right on the money. Oh snap, what was it? Hang on?
I have to actually go to it because I'm just

(10:48):
looking at the star itself. It's three point three point
nine to seven. Okay, three point nine seven all right?
Not quite four? Yeah, but very close, very close. And
that's about what I would expect could Reads to give
this book. So the other member, her name is Rory
I don't know if that's actually how it's pronounce because
it's spelled are you r I? I heard, Yeah, I heard,

(11:09):
though I was thinking of like r O r Y.
It's spelled are you are I. It might be pronounced rory,
but it's not spelled traditionally as we would expect rory
to be spelled. Apparently it's it's Icelandic. We'll get into that.
And the two of them, through a series of events,
are forced to work together against the forces of evil,

(11:32):
and apparently love happens at some point. I'm not sure
when or why. I don't know when that don't really
know when that happened. In the story, lust definitely happens, yeah,
for sure, for there's so much of that. Here's another
thing about this one again, there there there were sex scenes. Yeah,

(11:53):
I feel like the violence was way more graphically depicted
probably and the end of it. Oh sure, yeah, I
mean yeah. I'm over here as a desensitized American who
has seen violence in a bunch of forms, So I'm
just like, h is it a Qatar level? I don't know.
Maybe I feel like the sex was probably more explicit

(12:15):
than Akatar. Hmm. Yeah, I would say that yeah, I
feel like they're on the same the sex and violence
are on the same tier here, I can see that.
But we are going to get into that trigger warnings
for violence. There is death in this book. There is,
there's just mostly death.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
There is an attempted sexual assault.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
There is, Yes, a sexual assault does not happen, but
there is an attempted sexual assault. There is some dubious consent.
There's some dubious consent.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
And as here's the thing, Actually, that attempted sexual assault
scene did not offend me as much as the the
reaction of the character who did almost get sexually assaulted,
Like her reaction about that later was more offensive to me.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
We'll get to that way.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
We will get into that for sure. We'll get into
a lot.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, we're going to get into a lot with this book.
But that's I think all that we've got for the
beginning here for the non spoilery section. But we're going
to move on to our spoilery review of this book.
But first we're going to have a quick word from
our sponsors. We might I might want to bring this
up later, not in this podcast, in a different time,
in a different time, in a different place in time,

(13:24):
I'm gonna start the chimer all right, So five Moons Rexing,
five Moons Rising, I Chelsea went through as I was
listening to this audio book. I went through and I
did chapter summaries. We were about to say, I went
through the five Stages of greed. I did do that also.
I mean, like, hey, listen, I have a lot of
feelings about this book. Some of them are positive. Okay,

(13:47):
most of them aren't, yep, but some of them are positive.
I mean, listen, I didn't hate everything about this book.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
No, Again, she did make us read that lesbian rare
rolf thing with the strict gender binary.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Maybe my bar is in hell, but possibly this cleared
that at least it wasn't the Torn series. It wasn't God,
it wasn't the Torn series. Man, you know what was
the Torn series? It wasn't.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Oh, actually that's gonna that. No, that'll be something we'll
discuss later.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
So I'm gonna ask you, Chelsea, would you like me?
How do you want me to do this? I can
either read my chapter summaries all in one go and
then we can discuss the contents of the chapter, or
we can interject as I'm reading as thoughts and feelings occur.
So here's the thing. The second one's gonna happen anyway,
all right, so we.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Should just accept that and move on with it.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Okay, So chapter one Malice Mary Alice Malice is a
hunter hired by the government to kill super normal that's
what they referred to the mass yeh, super normal creatures
like vampires, werewolves, faye, and demons. They think that demons
because the book begins with her hunting a demon through

(14:56):
a warehouse.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
They think that demons are from another de mention. I'm
kind of like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, duh, I want to know more about the demons.
We never find out more about the demons in this book.
There are four books though, that's true. But I'm just
gonna say the book starts off with her talking a
lot about demons because she's actively hunting one and it's
like hurting her and she's chasing it through a warehouse. Uh,
never again our.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Demons mentioned in this book?

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, not at all?

Speaker 3 (15:22):
And I'm just like, okay. They also she mentions whirls,
but she calls them furries.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
And I that I laughed. I did laugh because it
made me think of a completely different thing. I was
just thinking of people in first suits. At that point,
I'm like, what the furzy people ever do to you?
So Malice chases a demon who has killed a bunch
of people. Apparently there's been like a lot of like
homeless people and drifters that this demon is killed through

(15:46):
a warehouse before flash banging it, which somehow causes its
eyes to bleed.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
She mentions that it causes eyes to bleed this like.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Corrosive blue blood. And then she kills it with her
super cool katana. God, she's got a super cool katana
and a duster.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
She wears a long trench coat and.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Has a super cool katana, and the demon begs for
its life. When was this? When was this published?

Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's a good question because they mentioned cell phones.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
But they mentioned cell phones like blinking lights with voicemails,
and I'm like this, this just feels like early two
thousands maybe to me, keep going, I'm just looking when
it was published. So yeah, the demon is just kinda
like please Malice No. I was published in twenty seventeen.
I have so many questions. I have a lot of questions. Actually,
that raises a lot more questions for me as a person.

(16:36):
Is it? But where is it? What is it set?
Is it?

Speaker 3 (16:40):
It couldn't be set earlier than twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
It didn't say we don't get a time mind date,
it's in Chicago. We do know it's in Chicago. That's true.
But yeah, birthplace of this book. A lot of this book.
There's a lot of like exposition and introspection that is
sprinkled throughout a lot of the content of the chapters.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
There's forty three chapters.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
This was a twelve hour long audiobook. A lot of
the content of the chapters is not action. It is
characters talking about their feelings or elements of the world,
and so the point of view changes a lot of
the Yeah, a lot of the summerization of the chapters
just people giving us information about stuff that is not

(17:24):
actually happening right now. So while Malice, the government super
normal hunter, is chasing this demon through this warehouse, she
is musing on demons in general and on their rarity
and her experiences as a hunter and what the government
did to her because she is a super soldier who
was experimented on by the government and has like a

(17:47):
super traumatic super soldier backstory, Like Captain America. Yeah, like
Captain America except like, apparently except lesbians, and apparently there
were at some point sixteen of them. Yeah, the majority
of the people who went through the super cultial experimentation died,
and the ones that did are mentally the one that

(18:07):
didn't die are mentally unwell. Most of them are like
alcoholics or drug addicts, and then all of them are
a little crazy.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, all of them are a little crazy. So she
kills this demon.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
It begs for its life, and she beheads it, and
then she's just like and then I'm just gonna leave
his body there because it'll degrade within twenty four hours
and probably no one will find it.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
So it's whatever, And I'm like, Okay.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
What's interesting is though she she does have a family.
Malice mentions her family. Yes, she has a sister named Cassidy,
who also lives in Chicago. And then she has a mom
whose name I can't remember, Sophia, okay, who also is
a little bit like she's very much she's like the
mom who is like, are you gating? We I hated
their mom. I did too. I hated their mom. God,

(18:50):
I kind of wanted her to die a little bit,
a little bit, But there was a bit in the
so she she kills this demon. She's packing up over
stuff she has this truck, and then she drives home
to her super cool warehouse turned apartment, I guess. And
at one point she's mentioning like putting all her weapons

(19:10):
and various implements of hunting away, and she talks about
how she has to like packet and she does. She
has to drive carefully because she doesn't want to get
pulled over because like the cops wouldn't like to see
her toolbox. Yeah, And I'm like, you're a government agent.
Why don't you have a permit for your tools? Like,
why don't you have a thing? That's why don't you
have a prep that says I can do what I want?

(19:31):
Like you are sanctioned by the government apparently, but it's
like but they're secretly saying it.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
But I'm like, you can, you can? You can still
do that? Yeah, you can, just still have a permit.
And you're like, I can't tell it's it's classified.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
I'm it's like, I am a permit, this is legit,
leave me alone, And what are they gonna do? Yeah,
they can't freaking Yeah. So anyway, Mary Alice, she is
five foot three. She is super strong because of the
super soldier serum that got injected in her.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
She doesn't know what it is.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
She's she's tortured. She's a super cool katana. Yep.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
We later were in the super cool katana is in
fact government issue.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yep. She was in the army and she was trained
how to use a katana in the army in twenty seventeen,
in twenty seventeen, and so this is a government issued katana.
And I think later she mentions having a walk as
afshi as well, And I'm like, why did they teach
you how to use that in the government in the

(20:26):
millet in basic training? Yeah, huh in America, in America
in twenty seventeen. So many questions because she talks about
like the weapons that are used to kill kill monsters. Yeah,
I guess silver is not useful against wear wolves by

(20:47):
the way. That thing also, Dori tells us later, Yeah, okay, thought.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
But no, but you're you're right, like you can keep
gun if you want.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Just the silver is not viable. Which it's like when
books like to obscus like completely not ignore, but when
they try and go against like what normal lore is.
I don't actually mind that, And I like their whole
thing where it's like we just let them believe it
because it doesn't actually kill us. So like, yeah, it's
like we it benefits us for people to think that

(21:15):
silver weapons are because silver doesn't make good weapons. Actually
it's not that strong of a medal, so we want
them to think that. In a very similar way again
bringing up back Guitar, where the fay are benefited by
the lie that they can't lie. Yeah, so it's like
the misconception helps them, so of course they perpetrate it. Yeah, exactly, no,
no sense, No I don't either. So yeah, so Mary Alice,

(21:38):
I'm just gonna refer to her as Malice for the
rest of the book because that's easier for my wife. Yea,
even though the name is kind of done.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's twenty seven, like I thought this was like this
read like a two thousand and five books.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
And again also Mary Alice's Malice is her code name.
That is her government code name. Yep, they gave her
that name, the government did. They're like, we're gonna call
you Malice, And I'm like, okay, all right, because her
name is Mary Alice. I see, I get it. Haha.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Anyway, she comes home to a super cool industrial warehouse
apartment thing.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
That the government is paying for, which, by the way,
like when I was a kid, the places that I
thought would be the coolest to live would be like
artists loft, like open floor things like that, which she
this is what this is? Yeah, yeah, or the old
firehouse from Princess Diaries. Mood though, honestly, yeah, Mood would

(22:33):
love to live in that old firehouse. She does make
some goofs about it being impossible to heat, which I'm like, that's,
you know, an actual concern that an adult person would
in Chicago. In Chicago, this open warehouse, which was not
built with good installation, I don't think. Anyway, she gets home,
and this is the weird part, because she mentions she

(22:54):
has a burner phone that she brings with her on
government missions so that she can contact her handler, and
her personal phone, which is presumably a modern day cell phone.
She leaves it home when she's out killing monsters, so
that I guess she can't be tracked through it. That's fine, whatever, fine.
She mentions coming home and seeing that her cell phone

(23:16):
is blinking because it has a bunch of messages in
the voicemail. Yeah, like there's a light on it that
is blinking, And I'm like, in twenty seventeen in retrospect,
because at the time we thought both of us are
reading this thinking you loved like two thousand five, right, Yeah,
I mean it could still be intended to be set
during that time. Yeah, possibly, I don't know. It's time

(23:36):
when ambiguous. They don't mention specific you know, events happening,
So who's to say. Maybe someone could go in there
and figure out the exact time frame it mentions in
the other books, but we're not reading them unless I
don't know. Celeste rolls up on more Timtams for you,
would you crumble?

Speaker 4 (23:53):
There's gonna have to be more Timtams, like so many more,
like so many more Tims, I feel like, and I
would feel guilty if there weren't also Tim TAM's for
you at this point because of my suffering.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yes. So, one of the messages that she gets is
from her sister who's just kind of like, don't forget
we're having dinner with mom next week, blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
One of them is from her handler, who's this guy
whose code name is Uncle Ralph.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Hate that because my grandfather's name is Ralph and I
don't like this. And Uncle Ralph is just kind of like, hey, kiddo,
call me, and like they're speaking in a very coded way.
I'm wondering why he's calling her on her personal phone.
Hold up, I just realized. Yeah, I didn't realize it
at the time, but I'm realizing it now. This is
definitely happening in like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, and when

(24:36):
we get there, I'll explain. Okay, Okay, I know, I
know it is, oh right. I don't know why he's
not calling her on her burner phone, which is meant
for contact and government. Why is Uncle Ralph calling her
on her personal phone if she has two, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
The rest of the messages that they're like five are
all from this chick named Anne that Mao is hooked
up with, who is kind of obsessed with her, because
apparently malice is she doesn't listen to any of these messages.
She doing someone without listening to them, yea, And I'm like, okay,
I guess I probably would listen to them, because if

(25:13):
somebody called me like five times, I would think that
an emergency was happening. Yeah, yeah, but she she doesn't
listen to any of Anne's messages.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
As soon as she determines that it's Anne, She's like.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Oh no, kill that. Apparently Malice her day job, her
like cover job, is as a sculptor. Yep, she does.
We were in later like metal sculpting, and she was
showing her work at a gallery and her her little

(25:45):
hookup and got her phone number from somebody at the
gallery and is now contacting her. And Malice hates that
and is like, ugh, I'm never going to contact her again. Yeah,
change my number, change my number. She would, She's gonna
change her number rather than talk to this woman. And

(26:08):
I'm like, okay, forgetting an idea of who you are
as a person. That's chapter one. Chapter two is from
Rory's perspective. So Rory, I said, a girl wakes Rory
up with sexy ear licking, also fingering. That happens, Well,
she wakes up with the ear licking and then the
fingering happens. Yeah, the book gets it's like, there's sex

(26:31):
in this book.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
There's lesbian sex in this book.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Because Rory, our other protagonist, she is a I think
she's like five foot six, five foot seven. She's a
slightly taller, muscular, blonde woman wear wolf and she gets
fingered by her girlfriend in bed and uh Rory wants

(26:55):
to bite her in like a sexy werewolf way, but
and then complains that she can't get off just because
of fingering. So they scissor on the bed for a
bit and then both of them nut her partner. Oh,
both of them start turning into wear wolves as they're
getting into it. This is like a oh, yeah, they're
were wolves because this talking about them shifting, shifting in

(27:18):
this universe sounds horrific honestly. Yeah, not from like from
watching it point of view, certainly, but also from experiencing
because apparently it hurts a lot because the way that
they shift is like it doesn't happen all at once.
It's like their bodies are changing piece by piece and

(27:39):
like breaking and like bits of them, bits of a wolf,
are like coming out from insight of them. So like,
here's here's my thought process with that.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah, I like the idea of introducing a kind of
body horror to it. There was another book we read
that Katie had us read that had that kind of
same thing where it was like shifting was kind of
body horror.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Correct, Yes, I that's fine.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
I think that actually a really interesting take on where
wolf kind of transformation. What does bother me in this
book is you introduce that but then also introduce shifting
during sex or like shift Like it's not consistent to.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Me because they describe shifting being very painful, but they
also describe it happening at moments of like high intensity,
like excitement or fear or like quote unquote arousal. And
all men are all in meanings of the word where
both like you are angry or you know, excited or

(28:40):
you know porny. Yeah, that's when they start shifting. So
they start going like a little wolfee while having sex.
And I'm like, so does it hurt now or what?
I don't know, but anyway, they're both were wolves. There
is Rory and her longtime girlfriend named Brittany. Question answer
David Devil this point.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
Because it's like, obviously it's Rory and Malice, who are
the lesbian couple that are in this book. What did
you think it was gonna happen to Brittany?

Speaker 3 (29:05):
I thought she was gonna die, said for sure.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I thought she's gonna die. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I thought
that was what was gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
I thought it was gonna be like a tragic thing
for her.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
I mean it kind of was. I guess it was.
It was just not that it was not that Brittany
doesn't die yet. We'll get into that anyway.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
So Brittany, this is like a scene of domesticity.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
So like the all of the werewolves live in this
It used to be an abandoned hotel, and the werewolf
is an abandoned hotel. I guess. I mean it's it's
now lived in.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
They made it nice, yes, but it was a hotel
that was abandoned. It's still like a hotel that was abandoned.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
True. This is a werewolf pack has moved into this
abandoned hotel and they're squatting in it. They have been
four years apparently. Yeah, and they've renovated it so that
it's actually kind of nice again. And this is the
whole thing of like werewolf domesticity where they're all living
together in this little community. And Rory has her hot

(30:01):
girlfriend that she lives with and loves.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
And is talking about mating with her.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, been dating for six months and Britney wakes her
up with some morning sex, which honestly like good for you. Yeah,
if you can get good for you, you can get it.
And she's just like, oh, babe, the alpha wants to
talk to you. And there's there's this whole thing also

(30:27):
where after they finger each other and then get off,
they're walking around their the room to the hotel naked,
and I think that like Britney just leaves the room
but doesn't close the door, and then the door is
just open. They talk about explicitly like where Wolve's not
caring about nudity. There's nudity though, and then there's like,

(30:48):
but y'all have just been fucking Yeah, apparently the worlds
don't care about that either.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
That there's just very cavalier about.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
All of that.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
No, there's a difference between me and cavalier about nudity
and cavil about sex.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Sex. Yeah, I guess it's I'm not shaming it. It's
just it's like, Okay, somebody's gonna come in and talk
about how like privacy about sex was a very modern thing,
and how like back in the day when everyone was
living in long houses, you didn't have privacy for that
kind of thing. And no one cared, and I'm like,
I guess, yeah, I guess. But also apparently underwear is

(31:22):
a very human, mortal thing that wolves don't worry about.
That is also explicitly said that Rory's like, I don't
get underwear, and I'm like, okay, it's comfy, right, not
thought like there's some hygiene reasons behind underwear. Yeah, there's
also that, because there's just for the fact of like
not necessarily having to do laundry on your.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
Pants, can wear on the stowing pants more days in
a row because I can wear underwear.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's some reasons, especially for ladies also
why you want to wear under it.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
But I guess were wolf ladies don't men straight. I
think that's a thing.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
No, they don't explicitly. I think it's a thing that
they don't so maybe they don't have to worry about it.
I don't know, man, they don't get into it. So
we learn that everybody's living in this Man hotel together.
Brittany was a werewolf that was turned involuntarily. She got bit,

(32:16):
and she joined the pack abouts a little over six
months ago, and she and Rory started hooking up and
they've been together in Blissful Piece ever since, Like they
Brittany makes her coffee in the morning and there's this
whole bit where she's like, oh, what is it now today, babe,
because Brittany has been experimenting with like different coffee flavors
and she's like, yeah, maybe like a caramel latte or whatever,

(32:39):
and Rory hates it, but she drinks it anyway because
she loves her girlfriend so much. Yeah, and it's like
this is very domestic.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, she goes to see her alpha and by the way,
her alpha Dean he a Dean the way this man
is described in the story. Yeah, I immediately was like
he's about to die.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Honestly, there were a lot of red flag Yeah. Yeah,
there are a lot of death flags out to die
because he was like, oh, Dean's so cool and he's
so strong and everyone loves him and he's really nice
and he's like the perfect alpha. He's like well, first, also,
like there's some really misogynistic crap that's happening on with
other werewolves who don't because with a werewolf named Lewis,

(33:18):
Rory is the beta of her pack. This is going
by the the debunked wolf Pack dynamics thing, it doesn't matter,
that's this is just werewolf pack dynamics at this point. Yeah,
where the alpha is a guy named Dean, Rory is
the beta, which means she's second in command. And there's
a bunch of other werewolves in the pack who don't
think she should be second in command because she's a lady.
And there's a guy named Lewis who keeps challenging her

(33:40):
because she's a lady and he and Lewis.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Thinks that he should be stronger.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, And so Rory has to like show how cool
she is by handing him his ass a little bit
before she's allowed to go talk to Dean. So there's
that that happens, which is to show us that Rory
is cool and strong and like yeah. Yeah. Also she
references knowing Dean for seventy years. Yes, and so this

(34:06):
is our first little hint that like, yeah, Rory is
apparently like stupid old yeah. Yeah. Where or where they
don't call themselves. They call themselves the Wolven, the Wolven
woln They have super long lives. Yes, So Dean is
a short king apparently he is. I also got the
impression on who was black because they talk about him
having dreadlocks.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
I don't remember that, but possibly he is apparently super
chill and super cool and super.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Strong and everybody loves him and he's incredibly dominant and
he exudes dominance without it being like overt and really aggressive.
He's just that kind of guy. He's also naked for
some reason when Rory enters his room, but nobody cares
about nudity, so it's fine. Yeah. And also, because this
is a lesbian book, there are no there are no
descriptions of his dick. No, yeah, we don't care about

(34:54):
his dick. We only care about the ladies. Listen, none
of that. We've been hearing about a lot of penises
we have.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Oh and important. Yeah, this book it's all boobs, it's
all it's all tits.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
There's so many tits. Tits are nice. You know what
this is where we are, Yeah, it's the tit time.
So he brought Rory in here because he wants to
tell her that there's this edgy loaner lone wolf guy
who's going to be passing through and he there's apparently
this ceremony, this this tradition that were wolves have where

(35:26):
if you are a lone wolf. You have to get
permission from the pack alpha of the territory before you
can pass through it. Yeah, you have to go in
and you have to ask the alpha of that territory
if it's chill, if you're there. Yeah, And so this
dude named mc tavish wants to come in and be like, hey,
can I pass through your territory? And Rory apparently would

(35:49):
have been an edgy loaner if it wasn't for Dean,
because Dean is just that cool and awesome, but also
like Rory's like, this guy is not chill. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
And also apparently Britt made him cookies.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, that's apparently she's great at baking. She's great at baking,
and everybody loves her and this is a big happy family. Yeah.
So which, honestly, I would love to live in a
formally abandoned hotel with all my friends. This was like
an a little commune. Yeah, we'd have to have like a
pretty great rooftop garden though, But.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, I just have a lot of questions about like
where is this hotel?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
How did Chicago? How do people not realize it is
inhabited because it had it by a lot of people, apparently. Yeah,
and also it has been inhabited for a while. They
talk about having been in this hotel for a while,
and also like does it have electricity and water? Who's
paying for that? Does the landlord there? To be fair,

(36:47):
there is towards the end of this book there is
a lot of conversations about all right, so like how
how do you sustain this yourself? Yeah, that does come out.
It's not answer The questions are not answered, but the
questions are asked, and I appreciate that they were asked.
I appreciate they were asked, but I'm also like, but
you don't answer them. I'm how do you how do

(37:10):
you make this work? It doesn't matter, I guess anyway.
Smash cut too. McTavish is on the scene. He's here. Yeah,
that was like real. I was like listening to it
and I was like, wait, what the fuck? I was like,
time skip. I guess McTavish has arrived. We don't know
how much time has passed that he's here now. And
he's like, we're having the ceremony to ask if he
can move through the area, and there's a lot of

(37:32):
they're in their fur form as it is called the
woven are in their fur form except for Rory, who
is not for whatever reason, and she's and Dean, who
is not because he needs to be able to talk.
I guess she's got a super cool machete, because why not,
you know.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
You know what, when when so far we've just been
hearing about a Katana machete doesn't sound bad.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
I thought the machete was going to be a bigger
part of this story.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's never seen again or used again, and I'm like, Okay,
there's a lot of things where it's a Chekhov's gun
situation where I think that they're going to get brought
back up again and they just aren't.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
No, there's a bomb that gets mentioned later.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
And I'm like, oh, this is gonna become relevant, and
then I remember that, yeah, it's never relevant again, and
I'm like, oh, I guess okay. So McTavish is clearly
like hates having to ask for permission. He's really upset
about having to be here and ask for permission, but
he's like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Can I be in your land Dean?

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Super cool for a guy, and Dean's like, yeah, sure,
that's fine. And there's a bunch of other wolves that
are there to watch, and like there's a bunching in
like the hotel ballroom there hotels big enough that it
has a ballroom in Chicago in Chicago, still abandoned for years,
and it's next to the woods. Apparently where is this hotel?

(38:45):
I am not from Chicago.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
I don't remember a whole lot from when I was
there almost twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
In two thousand and six. Yeah, except for the build
of Bear. Except for the build of Bear. I remember
other things too, but I don't where where is this?
Where is this? Where in the city is this? I guess? Oh. Anyway,
So there's like a bunch of other wolves that are
like Dean's bodyguards. He's like got a personal guard of

(39:19):
jacked wolf dudes who like protect him and also Rory
jack wolf ladies also So suddenly, like uh, I also wrote, okay, weirdly,
everyone in the pack is there to watch. Brittany is
also there, and Rory can't stop herself from being horny
for a single instant, like do they talk about this
whole book? That's his whole book, because like britt Rory

(39:42):
sees that Brittany is there and.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
It talks about her getting wet just thinking.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
About Brittany being there, and I'm like, okay, all right, checked,
I guess so mctaviag Then suddenly, like they mentioned, he
is even out of wolf form, kind to wolfy, which
is apparently something that happens if you are in wolf
form for a really long time, or if you're just
super old, you start you start looking more wolfy apparently.

(40:09):
And he just in human form, lunges at a dude,
one of the wolves, and bites it on the ass
and like thrashes with his sharp human teeth and like mobile,
it breaks this dude's spine. Yeah, and all the other
this is out of nowhere. This is going to be
out of pocket. Yep. All the other wolves then burst

(40:32):
forward to try and attack him, and Rory and Dean
and Dean they had to shift. It's very funny because
Rory starts taking off her pants because she's like, oh,
I need to shift. I don't want to ruin my
clothes in this emergency situation. I also, they're having problems shifting.
They are having problem shifting. She's as she's in the

(40:53):
process of taking off her pants, She's like, wait a second,
why can't I shift? Why Why is my wolf not
waking up, and Dean is also having issues. Yeah, it's
very obvious that he is trying to shift but can't.
He starts howling. This is very funny to me because
he starts howling as he would as a wolf, but
it just sounds like a dude howling. Yeah, And Rory

(41:14):
makes a point to think that it kind of sounds
dumb when it just sounds like a guy howling and
not a wolf. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds Rory pathetic and
lame apparently. And McTavish goes up to flex on Dean
and he and Dean tries to punch him. He's like, well,
I can't turn into a wolf, so I guess I'll
just hate you. Yeah, And McTavish catches his punch and

(41:36):
breaks his fingers because he's super strong, right and super
cool and edgy. Yeah, and then Rory tries to jump
at him with her machete and he just slaps her
out of the air, just like smacks her to the ground.
And then she notices I don't remember exactly what she's doing,
but she does notice Brittany helping McTavish. So yeah, because

(41:59):
this is the thing, is like, well, so first, what
happens is that apparently there is like a ceremony in
place for like challenges. If somebody wants to challenge the
alpha for dominance of the pack, there is like a
way to do that, and it's an official way, and
everyone thinks that that's what's happening. But then suddenly a
bunch of like a bunch of wolves are interfering, and

(42:19):
everyone's like, oh, wait, this is not a dominance challenge
because it should be just one on one if that's
the case, but it's not.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
A bunch of the wolves are interfering.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
And I was not clear at this point because the
book doesn't make it clear at first. I guess through
context clues. Later I figured out that these were wolves
from within the pack. Yeah, But at the time, I
was like, are these outstanders? And I'm like, wait, isn't
he a Wonne wolf? Who are these other? Like what's
going on?

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Where do these other wolves show up to help him?

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Like a bunch of wolves start helping him, And it's
not remarked where they came from.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
And I will say, by the end of this book,
I'm still kind of confused.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
I can I think I sort of understand what happened.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
So the wolf, like a bunch of wolves from the pack, Yeah,
suddenly start attacking Dean. No, I get that part. Yeah,
but also start of like attacking each other. And yeah,
again britt is there and kind of helping them. My
thing is why uh huh, that's my that's my thing
that I don't feel like was ever explained.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
It's like this guy's a lone wolf and he comes
in and decides to just take over.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Clear, but it's like it's presented away. It's like this
is something that's been planned. Yeah, he have like plants
in Yeah, because it's mentioned that McTavish had originally sent
word that he was going to be passing through this
area seven months before, and a bunch of wolves started
joining the pack six months ago, Yeah, including Brittany. Including Brittany,

(43:47):
And so it's kind of implied that a bunch of
these newer wolves that join the pack are mctavish's plants.
And they kind of mentioned you can sort of put
pieces together. Later in the book they mentioned something that like, oh,
I guess that's what's happening here, But early in the
book they don't explain what's going on with Yeah, and
it's like, for sure, Okay, it's just very weird. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
So the wolves, a bunch of wolves are attacking Dean.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Rory is kind of She's like, why is my wolf
not waking up?

Speaker 3 (44:18):
I don't understand. Why can't I shift?

Speaker 1 (44:20):
She manages sort of power through it and forces herself
to shift. It's apparently hurts like hell, like she's vomiting
up blood. And also there's kind of like they keep
talking about like a fluid that comes off of them
when they shift, Like I don't know, it's like a
clear bodily fluid. They just like ooze when they're shifting.
There's a lot of bodily of fluids happening. It's very

(44:42):
body horror like. I extremely into that as a concept. Yeah,
I think it was a little inconsistent with it in
the book. Yeah, but they do make it a body
horror thing. And a bunch of the wolves then like
jump onto Dean and they manage to knock him out
and Tavish like backbreakers in over his knee and cracks

(45:02):
this man's spine like Batman like bat McBain dropping Batman
on his knee, except without body armor.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
It's just a dude in jeans.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
It's just a dude in jeans. He's not dead, but
he's gonna be. And then and then like Dean's broken body,
still alive, is dropping the ground and McTavish tells Dean's
bodyguards the god the wolves in charge of protecting Dean.
Mctaffish is like, eat him, eat that man, and they do.

(45:31):
They eat him alive. Yeah. Cannibalism, Yeah, happens in the book.
And I'm like, okay, and then what's happening? And then
McTavish looks at all the other wolves in the room
and is like, submit to me, and a bunch and
then a bunch of them start kneeling. Yeah. And normally,
apparently in this process, you can choose if a wolf

(45:53):
takes over a pack, if they unseat the previous alpha
and take over a pack, it is customary for wool
to be given the option to leave peacefully. If they
don't want to stay, they can leave the pack. That's
not how it's gonna happen. No. One, girl named Rochelle
gets up and she's like, I don't wanna I'm leaving.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
I don't want to stay for this.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
And apparently she's a friend of Britney's and Brittany comes
up to her, Rory's friend Brittany and just slaps her
in the face. Yeah, and she's like Neil or die
and Rory's like, Brittany, we're friends, why are you doing this?
And then she Brittany rips her throat out. Yeah, she
bites her in the throat and kills her. Rochelle, not Rory, Rochelle.

(46:34):
Rory just watches all of this happening. Yeah, horrified, horrified.
She's like, what's happening? And various members of the pack
are getting cornered and like it's like chaos is breaking out.
Rory ends up escaping, Yes, so she actually there's also
there's a mention of two wolves named Mouse and Skippy,
And I'm like, are we gonna see Mouse and Skippy again?
We don't. I don't know why we focus on them,

(46:57):
but I like their names at least that there's Mouse's
Skippy and they're in love. But whatever, And so yeah,
Rory thinks, okay, I will kite the bad wolves away,
like they'll come and attack me some of the beta,
and then I will draw a bunch of them away
and then the less dominant wolves can escape Yeah, so

(47:18):
she starts doing that.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
She starts running through the hotel.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
This was very funny to me because it's mentioned that
she can't go through the door out. Yeah, because she
doesn't have thumbs and she would have to shift back
into her human form to open the door without thumbs.
That take too long, so she can't do it. So
I'm over here, like, this is not up to fire code,
is what you're telling me. This building does not have

(47:42):
push to open emergency fire exits. So this building like
is important, especially when you have a bunch of where
Wolve's living there. Yeah, the door should be you should
be able to open the doors without thumbs. Yeah, because
you have a bunch of wolves living in this building.
Doesn't she end up going out like a window? She
jumps through a window. Yeah, there's like on the on
the first floor of this building, there is like a

(48:04):
gym which has a huge glass window. And I'm again like,
how does no one know that this building is occupied?
If you have a working home gym in your hotel,
you've taken over. Yeah, with a huge ass glass window
to the outside, how do people not know that this
building is occupied? Whatever? I guess. She jumps through the glass,

(48:24):
shattering it because there's no push to open doors in
this building, so that her little wolf pause can't turn
a door. Yeah, and then she she uh and I
also she just runs off in the woods and she
abandons the rest of the pack because because it was
either that or die. Yes, And she does manage to

(48:46):
get some of the ones to follow her, and she
loses them in the woods surrounding the building. But also
she does not go back. Yeah for anybody inside. Yeah,
And I'm like, Okay, a lot happen. Yeah, a lot
has just happened very quickly, very quickly. And then hard
cut to Mary Alice having a meal with her family. Yeah,

(49:08):
so this is this is a whole thing. So there's
mad different kind of battle, a different cod I hate Sophia.
There's Malice and her younger sister, Cassidy, who is in college.
I think she's in her like she's like twenty three
or something. Yeah, she's I think she's in her like
last year. She well, I mean not anymore. Well that yeah,

(49:29):
she's she's in her early twenties. And then there is
their mom, Sophia, who is the worst. And there they
have a father who passed in a car accident in
a car accident, which I have suspicions about that I
will discuss later, Okay, But they're all having a meal,
and it's remarked that Malice is eating vegetarian spaghetti and meatballs.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
Because she does not eat meat, because she ever since
she joined the Special Ops Yeah, and ends up murdering
a lot of people. Yeah, she has a kind of
like a reaction of like, she can't eat meat anymore
because there's something about like, well, the people I kill

(50:14):
deserve it, but these animals have not done anything to
deserve it.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
It's also this whole thing about like she hunts things
that view people as prey. Yeah, and so in her
mind there is now this distinction between like human beings
and livestock, and so she can't in good conscious eat
meat because of how animals are treated as livestock, which

(50:40):
is like kind of an interesting moral compass to have.
I mean, there are people in the real world who say,
I am against the industrial meat complex and I don't
eat meat because I don't think the animals are treated well. Sure,
but it's interesting that she came to that realization after
hunting monsters that eat people. Yeah, it's like okay, interesting,

(51:02):
but she just talked about how she still craves meat
all the time. Yeah, but Cassidy is like, oh, are
you still vegetarian? About it? And like her family's judging
about it, and her mom is like, oh, well, Cassidy,
you know, if you became you know, you should maybe
be vegetarian also so that you can keep your figure. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Yeah, she starts body shaming her daughters, and.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I was immediately like fuck off. Yeah, literally literally, I
was like, all right, you're dead to me, and and
Malice is like, mom, I'm not a vegetarian to keep
my figure. And then Sophia is like, well then why
would you, like, why would you bother like if you're
not trying to be pretty forever like, and then she
talks about like like me, girls, like you should you

(51:46):
should follow your mother's advice. And because apparently she is
a very stereotypical, like nineteen to fifties housewife esque, perfectly
quaffed and slender and pretty woman all the time, vampires
exists in this world. Yeah, I have a feeling if
it hasn't happened, I just feel like it would that

(52:08):
this mother is like, this is someone who as soon
as they find out the supernatural world exists. Is like,
I'm gonna be a vapire so I can beautiful for her,
so I can be hot forever. Yeah, absolute, honestly would
could imagine. And so she starts bodyshamming your daughters and
telling them that they need to settle down and have kids.
And I thought this was gonna be a whole thing
because it's explicitly said that Malice is a lesbian. But

(52:31):
then malis apparently like, can't Cassidy knows about Anne, Like
Malie mentioned to Cassidy about Anne the chick who she
hooked up with, and mentions how she's changing her number
rather than talking to this woman. Yeah, And weirdly, her
mom is chill with her being a lesbian. There's no

(52:52):
she draws the line at not giving her grandchild. She's like,
you have to settle down with a girl, with a
nice girl. You better stop pouring around my daughter. You
got to sit down with a nice girl and give
me grandkids. Yeah, I don't care who you marry. Honestly,
diversity win, Yeah, diversity win.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Body shaming mother is not homophobic.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
They show with you being a lesbian, but does still
demand grandchildren Yep, does not have to be biologically your grandchildren.
You could adopt apparently with it with the nice girl
of your choice. Yeah, but you do have.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
To have some yes.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
And I'm like, there's there's so much happening here, so
many layers. There's so many layers here of Sophia Nelson.
What a time are Nolan? I think it's Nolan, it's
her their last name, Sophia Nolan. Is this woman? My god? Anyway,
So Cassidy is like, oh, by the way, I'm changing
my major again. Yeah, and this is a big thing

(53:48):
because apparently this is like the third time she's done this,
and she's still in people in college where she's like, oh,
I just decided I didn't like it. I here's here's
my thing. I think you should be to change your major.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
I absolutely agree that there's nothing wrong with changing your major.
What I don't understand is people coming into college undeclared. Yeah,
because I'm like, community college.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Exists, sure, Like get your get the way.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Yeah, nothing wrong with going to community college, taking a
few classes, trying to figure it out way cheaper before
going off to your to a four year school.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Well, the thing about this is that she came into
college with a major. She started as a French literature major.
Cassidy did, and then she was like, oh, actually I
want to do fashion design. And then now she's like,
actually I want to do finance. I think there was
something in between that two. No, it was just three.
It was a hard jump from fashion design to finance.
And everyone's like, yeah, Cassidy a home because you get

(54:49):
more money, because you get more money doing that. Because
here's the thing. Apparently they got money. There was a settlement.
I don't exactly know. Their father died in a car crash,
and I don't know where they're getting the settlement money from.
If it was from the insurance like his life insurance,
or if there was a lawsuit against the person who
caused the car crash. Yeah, who's to say. They got
settlement money and a lot of that money went towards

(55:11):
paying for Cassidy's college because Malice did not go to college.
Malice joined the army.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
Yeah, and so apparently that settled. But like the mom
is saying, like, the settlement money is not gonna last forever. Yeah,
and Malice is like, I mean it's she didn't say
it aloud. She's like it's already run out, like I'm paying,
I'm paying for Cassidy's college.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
She has been secretly paying for Cassidy's college through the
GI billah, which is not how that works. You're not
allowed to use that money for other people. And that's
explicitly mentioned in the book that because Malice is a
super soldier, she was expected to live long enough to
use the GI but exactly she was able to. She
was able to have her superiors transfer that money for

(55:54):
her sister's education, specifically because she is a super soldier
who's to die soon. Yeah, so like that's an exception,
which I except that.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
It's crazy to me, Like that's okay, Like sure, but
it's crazy to me that, like I understand with like
the other people that she is that like are in
her squad unit, they're all like alcoholics and dry addicts
and they don't really have any kind of connections to people.
It's crazy to me that Mary Alice was like, I'm

(56:26):
going to volunteer for this while still having a family, right.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Yeah, it's it's what's crazy you get into this?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah, because apparently you just joined the army and then
at some point they approached you like we're going to
make you a super soldier and you were like, yeah,
why yeah, what did they promise you? Girl? Why did
he make this choice? Yeah, it's just crazy, we were
why were you picked for this? I don't know, because
she was just like a chick in the army. Uh,

(56:57):
because she didn't become super strong and super or.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Whatever until after the super soldier serum.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I don't know. Well, I have again suspicions. I have
suspicions anyway. Anyway, Yeah, so yeah, so they're like, hey, Cassidy,
maybe you should not change your major again because now
you have to do another year of college. And Cassidy's like,
this is the last time. I swear I'm not going
to change it again. And everyone's like X a doubt,

(57:23):
X A doubt. But whatever, Okay, we'll keep paying for
your school because apparently this is a this is a
sensitive thing for Cassidy. And also their mom makes a
comment about her husband, her late husband.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Jimmy, having gambling problems.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Ah, yes, that's right, apparently he had. It was a
gambling addict, and he wasted a bunch of the family's
money betting on horses and dogs and sailboats and anything
basically he was a gambling addict who squandered the family
money and now is dead. Ye glove it for them,
great dynamic. But also they think that MAOIs is making

(58:04):
a bunch of money as a sculptor, even though or
apparently her sculptures are like a therapeutic way of her
getting out the visions of her twisted mind. Yeah, which
I think is very funny. Yeah, it's just kind of
like she's using the sculpture as a way to cope
the horrors that she has seen, but it's also her
cover story. And but then the military is like, yeah,
you can make some money off of that, pretend that

(58:26):
that's your job. We'll give you money to sustain yourself,
us the government, but just how everyone you do sculpture?
And apparently she used to work at a credit union
before that, which I found very funny. Yeah, but she
copes by saying that she only kills the bad monsters.
She's like, I've seen so many horrors, but at least
I'm keeping the streets clean.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
I keep the streets clean, like I specifically go after
ones that have gone after like humans.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Yeah, so it's it's a moral high ground, like there
are specifically ones that she does not go after. Yeah,
if apparently, like if monsters are being check, if the
super normal are just like living and being chill, and
then she leaves them alone. And in the middle of
this lunch that she's having with her family, she gets

(59:10):
a call from Uncle Ralph, who is also once again
calling her personal cell phone, and he basically says some
stuff that's a coded message like come, I need to
meet you right now. Yeah, And so she says her
goodbyes to her family. Their mom's flying out the next day,
and she steals her sister's phone to be an asshole.

(59:31):
I don't I also thought this was going to come
back in some way, like she pickpockets her sister when
she's hugging her and steals her phone. It's just like
the pickpocket thing, to show that she's good at that. Yeah,
she does steal her phone ladder. I guess, yeah, I
don't know. I thought that this like the fact that
she I don't know. I thought it was going to
be more relevant than it was. I guess I don't remember. Anyway,

(59:54):
Cassidy realizes that her sister stole her phone just to
be a dick, and then Alice leaves to go meet
her handler, and apparently this is a week is past,
because now we're back with Rory in chapter five. This
is only chapter five. Ye, there's forty three chapters. Chapter five,
Rory returns to now abandon hotel. No one's been there

(01:00:15):
in a week, and she slips inside, which is made
harder by her shoulder, which is still wounded because she
jumped through a window, like a closed window. And they
talk about how like pack ties are important for magic reasons,
like there's some kind of like psychological but also magical

(01:00:35):
connection that the pack has, and that if you they're
stronger together, and if you don't have a pack, you
don't heal as fast. Yeah, And all of Rory's pack.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Ties have been broken because a bunch of them are dead.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Because a bunch of them are dead. And she ran away,
ran away. Yeah, so that's the whole thing. So she's
not healing as fast as she should be, and she's
sad about all over former pack, and she's walking around
this place like, oh, this is our home, and like
Dean's decomposing body is still there. They just left that

(01:01:09):
man there, but apparently he's been picked clean. His skeleton
is just on the floor. Yeah, they ate that man.
And then there's a bunch of other corpses just lying
there around in the ballroom. Where did they lie? And
she also mentions that she's thinking about there was this
kid named Wyatt who was like a drifter who the

(01:01:30):
pack picked up like five months ago ish, who got
in really close and like was a really cool, good
kid and ended up ascending to the ranks of one
of Dean's bodyguards.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
And he's in the ballroom dead.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Yeah, but unlike a bunch of the other wolves whose
bodies are eviscerated, Wyats is untouched. And she's like, huh,
that's weird. Why is his And I'm like, well, obviously
because he was a plant. Yeah, Rory, it was because
he was a double agent, Rory, like Brittany was a
double agent. Rory, I don't know why. That's a mystery

(01:02:05):
to you. Okay, listen, Rory's I actually like her as
a character. She's stupid. Yeah, she is kind of an idiot.
I think I like Cassidy the most. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
hate Malice. She's annoying.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
I hate her so much.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Yeah, we'll go more into that. Rory goes to her
room because there's like a photograph. There's a tin type
photograph of her family from back in the day when
her biological family, her biological family from when she was human,
which was a frontier family yep who moved out into
the American West to manifest destiny yep, over a century ago.

(01:02:46):
And there's a picture of her from when she was
still human with them that she still has and she
wants to get it, and she finds that her room
has just been utterly destroyed. Yeah, like and then they
took dumps on all of her stuff, but it's like, okay,
it souls injury. Yeah, they peede everywhere and they like
destroyed everything in her room and she's like, okay, well

(01:03:09):
I guess none of this is soligible. Yeah. So then
sadly she just doesn't she just doesn't get her stuff. Yeah.
We jump back to Malice meeting her handle her uncle
Ralph in the park and she sees a coyote. I
don't know why that was mentioned. She sees a coyote,
But then Uncle Ralph shows up and he's just like
a kind of gross middle aged old man who's sketchy.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
He mentions to her like, so the pack where Dean
was the alpha Malice is aware of them, has been
aware of them for a while. Yeah, And so when
she goes to me with Uncle Ralph, he tells.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Her like, there's been a change in leadership. Yes, and
she's like, that's concerning because that pack was super stable,
the North Side pack, Yeah, was super stable, and now
there's a new alpha. So he's like, you got a
under this situation, yeah, because this might not be good.
They might be shifting, they might be changing, they might
be bad influence. Yeah, And Malice is kind of like

(01:04:07):
blase about it. She kind of doesn't care, but she's like,
all right, cool, go check it out. Uncle Ralph's like,
do you need backup? And she says no, I don't
want backup because she hates all the other hunters who
do her job, and also the government and also the military.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
She hates every party.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Did you volunteer for that? Why do you do this? Girl?
Why are you still here? Yeah? It's just like baffling
because she hates every person involved in the job that
she does. Yeah, but I guess because she took the
super soldier Juice, she can't back out now. But she's like, no, no, no,

(01:04:45):
I don't need help doing this. I'll do it myself.
And then she fantasizes about killing Uncle Ralph for a
little bit before heading to the hotel to check it
out to see because that's where they were before, So
she's gonna go check it out. So we don't get
to see her going to the hotel. We find out
that she went, and she also saw that it was

(01:05:06):
abandoned in gross and all wrecked. Yeah, and so the pack.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Is somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
So she decides that she's got to get some info
on where they went, and the best place to get
info is apparently from the vampires. Right, Yes, so we
meet Carla, Carla, Carla, so she yes, yeah, go off, girl, girl,
go off, So go go off about Carla before before

(01:05:33):
Carla is a character.

Speaker 4 (01:05:34):
Wait, so we read the audio book version, Yes, I
of course read it at two and a half not
two and a half one and a half speed, because
that's how I read audiobooks, because that's how brain work.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Yeah. So I was telling this to Christina.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
I don't know, because like sometimes with these things, I'm like,
I don't know if I want to disparage the audiobook
narrator because I don't know if it sounds weird because
I'm listening at such.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
A high speed.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
But the way that this audiobook narrator voiced everyone that
wasn't like the three main characters, yeah, was like the worst.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
It was kind of whiny. Yeah, like Carla's voice, so
says this thing. Karla is like the vampire Lord. Apparently
she's old as balls, She's from the Old Country. She
came to Chicago like over one hundred years ago, and
she has been in charge of the supernatural community kind
of ever since. Like, he's also super horny all the time.

(01:06:29):
She's so horny. God, she's so horny. But she is
a vampire, So I'm gonna let that go. Who isn't
horny also in these books, honestly, also Malice horny all
the time, Rory horny all the time. Cassidy not horny
all the time, only horny some of the time. Yes,
Carla makes up for the fact that Cassidy is not
horny all the time. Carla is too horny, I would say, yeah.

(01:06:51):
And she is the unofficial leader of the vampire community,
and she has a massive boner metaphorically format. Yeah, And
the way that she talks, she's like Malice. Yeah, it's
darling it's so good to see you. I hate it.

(01:07:12):
I hate it. It's it made me want to die
a little bit. Yeah, it made me want to die
a little bit. I don't know who the director was
who made these choices on the voice acting. I don't
know why that was done. I did not Maybe it
was supposed to be sexy. I didn't find it sexy.
It was not. I was just kind of like, can

(01:07:33):
we Carlic, can you just stop? Like please? Girl? Anyway, Yeah,
they're talking about so, so Malice goes to this nightclub
that the vampires own, because of course, the vampires have
a sexy nightclub.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
That's just like they have to.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
It's i think, contractually obligated at this point. Yeah, and
this is a nightclub that humans also go to. It's
like on the edge of both societies, and the humans
get to have a good fun time dancing and the
vampires kind of get to like suck the ambient life
energy off of the dance floor like filter feeders. I
don't know exactly how that works. Who knows. It's not

(01:08:09):
expanded on. But she also talks about how I wrote
in my notes I said vampires don't have rights. Some
of the Constitution because it is the thing. It's like
there's a whole thing right else. It's like, I, you know,
I exist outside the law. I don't know if something
had happened to you, I don't have to take you

(01:08:30):
in or anything like that, like because a parent. She
talks about how there's a couple of crimes that you
get capital punishment for under the under the law in
the United States, but apparently every crime, if you're super normal,
you get capital punishment for every crime. She explicitly says
that they are not They are not afforded due process

(01:08:52):
like that is explicitly mentioned in the book that they
are they do not get due processes, are right because
they're super normal, even though it's also said that both
umpires and werewolves start as human beings and then are changed. Yeah,
so they start with rights against their will. As soon
as you get bit and turned, you no longer have rights,
which again against their will, against their will. This can

(01:09:15):
happen to you. You can be bit by your werewolf
and have no idea what's going on to you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
But too bad, you lost your rights.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Kid, the government's gonna come for your ass. It's like crazy.
So it's wild and man was is a magic cop
and everyone knows her and apparently the super Soldier juice.
This is all things. As she's walking through the club,
she's just thinking about this. I guess the super Soldier
juice that she was given was like a weird cocktail
of other supernatural creature juice. Yeah, and she doesn't know

(01:09:42):
what was in it, but she knows that it changed
her again. Yeah, all of this is like your backstory
should be that you are a loner human who doesn't
have any family love, right, Why why did you agree
to this? Why why did you agree? Did they pay
you a lot of money? It doesn't seem like it.
It doesn't seem like it's never explained. Like, it's never explained.

(01:10:03):
I have I have a theory. I have theory will
get into later.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Okay, I have theory, will get into later.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
So anyway, so, like all the vampires, all the creatures
that are there know her and are freaked out by
her because apparently she's like the Chicago Boogeyman. She's like
a cryptid. Everyone is afraid of her because.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
She's malice and she kills.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
We don't believe she like exists, Yeah, but the ones
who do are like, oh, my god, that's Malice. She
kills supernatural creatures and she's like super strong and super crazy.
And she has a katana. She has a katana, a
government issued katana that she was trained to use by
the military. She has a drill sergeant. Government issued katana

(01:10:38):
is Todd berks Goban. I think her drill sergeant was
like it was like Sergeant Iowa or something like that,
Like they gave this man Japanese name to be like yeah,
and he taught her how to use a katana in
the military, because any inherently Japanese person in the military, no,
how do you use a katana? Yep, obviously, obviously if

(01:11:01):
you're Japanese, you know how to use a katana. Anyway,
you're born with this knowledge. You get handed one out
the womb. So so Malice goes to the main office
for this nightclub, which is where Karla is, and Carl
was like, oh, Malice, and she's sexy, and she's all sexy,

(01:11:27):
and she's like, oh, my delicious little morsel, my little snack,
come over here. I'll give you whatever information you want
as long as you let me drink from you. And
then I wrote, I wrote, Carla tries to psychically project
eating Malice out into her mind. These lesbians are crazy.
And she goes up to Malice and she starts groping

(01:11:49):
her all sexy, like, uh, I could make you feel
so good. Uh, And Malice is like, you can't take
me against my will. And Carl was like, I wouldn't
be unwilling. I'd make you want it so bad. And
then mals is like, I'll kill you, but is like fuck,
that sounds nice, and also tru is like hot, yeah,

(01:12:12):
but also God. But also she's like these vampires with
their psychic mind games, like she's making me want it.
This temptress, this cruel temptress already came out of the closet.
You don't need to go, you don't need to pretend
you don't find the vampire lady sexy. And this is
a problem I have with Malice, and we'll get into
this more later. Malice, his whole thing is she very

(01:12:33):
much does not think of the supernatural as people to
that normal creature she refers to as it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Yeah, she refers to them as inhuman animals.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
She does not think. She also is a thought that
like were wolves are no better than animals, and they
can't come up with like strategic attack plans. Racist. She's
so racist, she's so racist. She thinks there's that were
wolves are stupid, and she's like, I can understand vampire
because they're a little bit higher intellectually coming together with

(01:13:03):
a clever play, and were wolves wouldn't have that level
of complexity. And I'm like, oh my god, they were people.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
You're aware of that, that they were humans turned against
their will.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Then it's like, here's the thing. This is like stuff
that is like government propaganda that she's been sold, but
also you hate them, but also you also interact with
them on the regular. You go to this nightclub where
apparently you have this weird off and on again thing
with a vampire lord or Chicago, who is like, I'll
give you the information you want, but you have to

(01:13:34):
let me drink your blood. And so Malice is just
super cool and she cuts her arm so that she
can drip blood into a cup, but she heals real fast,
so it's not a big deal. And Carla is like, no,
it has to be from the story. It has to
be from the source. I want it fresh. And Malice
starts to kill her again, and Carla is like okay, well,

(01:13:56):
good luck finding anybody who's as cooperative as me to
work with your stupid ass. Yeah, and Malice is like, dang,
she's got me there. Everyone hates me, so I guess fine,
here's the thing. Carla fucking annoying yet also right. Also
she's right, Listen, I hate Carla. She's so annoying, but
she knows what she's about. Yeah, and she's right. She's

(01:14:17):
also like, girl, you like this, don't even pretend. And
she she's like, I wrote, okay, So here's my notes.
Carl is unconcerned, says good luck finding someone who isn't
as cooperative as her to weed everybody. And she also
says that the new alpha of the North Side pack
is consolidating power fast and she doesn't want to mess

(01:14:37):
with them, So like Malice has to make it worth
her while for her to spill these this information, this
hot goss, and Malice agrees to the feeding and is
horny about it, and then is angry that she's horny
about it, which happens a lot in this that happens
so often. She's so repressed about it, and there's this
whole thing about how she still thinks of herself as human.
And I'm like, girl, you just drank monster backwash to

(01:15:01):
get powers. I don't know why you still think you're
human when you're like jumping over buildings and like bending
rebar with your bare hands and like supercuing or whatever.
Why do you still think you're human? You're an amalgamation
of a bunch of not human Yeah, what do you?
What is this? You are as human as the people
you claim are not human. At least she's in such

(01:15:21):
a nile it is the issue. And so Malice is like, fine,
you can drink my blood, but you're not allowed to
use your sexy vampire mind powers on me. And carl
was like, all right, whatever, sure, I don't care as
long as I get it. And so then she bites
her in the tit, and well, first she gives her
the info. She says that the wolves move to an

(01:15:43):
old trucking center near the airport. I'm assuming, O, haare
that's the big airport? Yeah, And then Carla bites her
in the tit and plays with Malice's nipples, and Malice
is like, I'm not you can't use your wiles on me, demoness.
I can't be tempted. Not. Yeah, but Carlo's like freaking

(01:16:04):
fingering herself while she's drinking her blood, and I'm just
like okay. And Malice is in fact, incredibly horny over
this whole thing happening, but refuses to acknowledge that she's
horny over it, acknowledge he's horny of her own volition. Yeah,
it's like, girl, you were not being mind whatever, mind melded,

(01:16:25):
whatever this would be. No one is messing with ug
Jedi mind drink happening here. It just you were just horny.
Please just accept that about yourself. And so she tries
to get Malice to like it, and they make out.
They do make it, brag out yeah, and then Malice
pushes carl away like no, I won't. I won't give

(01:16:46):
in to your your weird monster temptations. And I'm like,
please stop again. You already came out of the closet,
Please stop. Also, like Carla fully nuts, she's like just
from drinking her blood. Yeah, it's a lot. A lot
happens in this scene, and it's a lot, and Malice
is so mad about it. She's mad about how horny
she is for Karla, and I'm like, you need therapy anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:17:08):
So she goes to monitor the situation. She does, Yes,
Malice decides she has to monitor the situation, and she
when she goes to where like this new pack is staying.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Yeah, she like this is like from her point of
view where she's seeing because like Rory in another scene
is like, I have to go check on them. Yeah,
And so we get she's been she's.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
Been trying to track them down since they left the hotel.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
So now Malice is going to go see where they
are what's going on, and she sees she doesn't know
it's Rory, but she sees Rory trying to get through,
and there are two other guys there who like grab Rory,
pin her down, and then attempt to sexually assault her
because Rory is actually in heat.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Yes, this is the thing that were wolves happen, and
it happens monthly, and I'm just like like, oh my god, girl. Yeah,
like my condolence is because apparently they just get really horny,
they go fully into heat every month, and Rory normally
would bang this out with Brittany, but Brittany is a
backstabbing double agent, and so that's not gonna happen. Yeah,
So she gets caught by these dudes, these werewolf betrayers,

(01:18:19):
who are like, oh cool, we'll just rape her. I guess, yeah, yeah,
fully just out in the open. And Malice is seeing
this happen and is like, not on my watch, and
she intervenes. Yes, I don't know. She doesn't kill them though, No,
she does. She kills you. There's there's multiple dudes in this.
I think there's more than two, but not many more

(01:18:40):
than it's a small group. And so she does straight
up just kill one of them, okay, And then she didn't.
I thought she just mortally wounded them essentially. No, she
she straight up kills a couple. But one of them
does get away, and that's the problem. Yeah, And the
rest of the books they're like how did they know?
And I'm like, you're you're idiots. You're so stupid, these characters.
Because one of them gets away and manages to rip

(01:19:01):
off a piece of Malice's coat in the process, because
she runs over her Katana just murdering people, and one
of them rips off a piece of her coat and
runs away, and Malice is just like, I'll let him go, yeah,
which allows Rory to get away. Yes, who the part
that I hated, and then after this we'll go to
a break. Huh. The part that I hated was later

(01:19:22):
when we're in Rory's head again. She was like, there's
a moment where I wanted them to because I'm so horny,
and I'm like unnecessary, Yeah, like unnecessary is the point
to just like emphasize how out of control these like
hormones make you feel. In which case, like that's kind

(01:19:45):
of there's a lot of you could make a whole
thing about how this is shablematic with the with the
hormones and and the way that their instincts take over,
but that's not really a focus of the book at
any time. No, And my thing is like Rory's pretty old.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
Yeah, like maybe not on werewolf.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
Standards, but she's pretty old. She's at least.

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):
Seventy she's no, she's one hundred and fifty years she's
one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
Oh I've said later in the book, she's over one
hundred and fifty years old. Okay, Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (01:20:08):
Feel like there was opportunity to be like, well, when
you first change, it is difficult because like you don't
know what's going on when you go into heat, and
it's just like an overwhelming sense of like must fuck.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Yeah. But if she's been going through this month over
a century at twelve times a year, yeah, Like I
get that it's uncomfortable. She does eventually like find a woman.

Speaker 4 (01:20:32):
To sleep with, which is like okay, sure, but to
then present her almost rape as like she kind of
wanted it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
What the fuck? Yeah? Yeah, like fucked up? Yeah, agree,
severely fucked up. But yeah that bothered me. Fair that
bothered me a lot, and I think understandably so yeah,
because again it's not presented in like as anything. It's
just like part of her internal monologue of like, oh

(01:21:01):
I'm so out of control that I kind of almost
wanted those guys to assault me. Yeah. It's like, oh, okay,
that's unnecessary. I feel like never brought up again, Nope,
And it's like why is this here? Yeah, it's it
does feel unnecessary. Yeah yeah. Yeah, And again is really
dis because there's a thing that happens later in the
book where I mentioned like dubious consent, and it makes.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
That more disturbing almost that situation.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
I mean like, I guess it's fine the way that
it works out, we'll talk about it. It's near the
end yeah, but also like I'm over here, like I
don't know how I feel about that situation. Yeah, it's us.
It's sus at the very least, it is very sus.

Speaker 4 (01:21:42):
Okay, but let's uh, let's stop there, because then that's
that's like an arc coming to like kind of kind
of like the phase.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
One, Yes, A is ending. We're about to get into
phase two. Things ramp up very quickly. Yes, but before
that we're gonna go into a break. Let's get back
into it. Yeah, where the hell are we? We're in
chapter eight? What? Okay, Okay, we're gonna Yeah, we'll speed run.
We don't need to go through all the deal. We
don't need to go through all the there's too many

(01:22:11):
deeds is chapter eight. Cassidy's POV. Hold on, let me
get because that's that's the next thing I'm thinking of.
Of consequence that happened. We will speed run and I'll
start I'll just start saying stuff that happens, and we
can shine in when you want to talk about more stuff,
and when I want to talk about storf sturf stir
stir he did you know he used to do parlor
in like two hours?

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
Yeah, but that's because a lot of the books you
didn't care about.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
Yeah that's true. Okay, so uh Rory's back in her basement.
She's too horny. She goes and finds a chick to
hook up with. Yes, Cassidy's in her apartment. She's gonna
have people over for a study group. She's just very
excited because there's this really hot guy. Yeah that is.
His name is cal Yeah, he's gonna come over. She

(01:22:53):
met him in the student union yesterday on campus and
he was like, Hey, what's your deal? And she was like, oh,
I'm in a finance major actually, and we're gonna do
a study group. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's cool.
They have the same class, they have will be the
same classes, they have a class in common or something.
I don't I don't know if she said that she's
ever seen I don't know. He says that she said
she'd seen him around before, probably yes. But he's like,

(01:23:18):
give me your address, and she's like, I won't question
that at all. Yes. Well, she's like and she's even like,
I'm not stupid, like I invited other people as well. Yeah,
Like it's not just gonna be the two of us,
but I am hoping he like stays for a little
while longer and like maybe we'll hook up. Maybe they
hook up, maybe because he's high, he's hot. And he
arrives two hours early.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
Yeah, and she's like unhinged, Okay, she just lets him in.
She lets him in, but then there's other people with him.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Suddenly, a bunch of dudes roll up and she's like,
who are you. You all need to leave, and they're like,
it's not just dudes. Oh, that's true. There is Brittany.
There is Brittany.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
Brittany is there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Britt is there, and she's like, you all need to leave,
and they're like no. And so she runs to her
bedroom and barricades herself in and calls Mary Alice. Yes,
she had previously been calling her to be like, hey,
I have to cancel her sister day. I have to
or like family meet up because I have midterms. And
then she calls her again and it goes to voicemail

(01:24:15):
yeah and and yeah, and she leaves a very terrified voicemail.

Speaker 4 (01:24:19):
She's like, they're here. I don't know what's going on, Like,
I don't know what's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
This is the thing because she just says they're here,
and that is so I would at least be like,
there's people in my apartment. Yeah, I was just saying
they're here. Kind of implies that the listener should know
who they are. Yeah, I don't know what that means.
When I hear somebody say they're here, I'm thinking, what
do you mean they're who are they They're where? If

(01:24:46):
you're just saying like, people are in my apartment, I
need help. I don't know who they are. I'm not
questioning who they are. I'm going to sort of let
that one go because of terror fair. I'm just sick.
I'm just saying, Cassidy, it doesn't matter. But the were wolves,
which Cassidy is not even aware exists.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
She's got no freaking idea.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
What's up.

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
Yeah, so Cassie is not aware of the existence of
were wolves, but they very easily break down her door
and assault her, like not sexually.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
It is not so she is not. Yeah, it's hard
to say, because they do like rip off her clothing,
but it is implied that they do so so that
they can have more places to bite her, because that's
what everyone starts doing, and there they.

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
We don't necessarily find this out right now, but it
doesn't matter one of them. I think cal ends up
redialing Mary. Yes, now Malice and says, this is your
fault for interviewing in pact business.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
Right, which is so stupid to me that that happened,
that he did that, because what it had happening is
the bit of her coat. They confirm this the bit
of Malice's coat that they were able to steal, the
one that got away when they were assaulting Rory. They
were able to use the scent.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
To trace to Cassidy because Cassidy.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
Smells like Malice because they're siblings. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
My question here, and I don't remember if this was
ever answered, do they know that this is Malice?

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
They know that this is Malice's siblings? Okay, they called
the most recent number. I don't know how they knew
that that was Malice because presumably it's just I guess
maybe because the code name is not actually that clever.
You just saw Mary Alice saved in this girl's phone
and were like, oh, Malice, Yeah, that's probably.

Speaker 4 (01:26:37):
It could also be that they heard her voice leave
the voicemail, right, But how.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
Do they know that this is that she was calling? Not? Like,
how they know that she's calling her mom. I don't
know true, maybe they were stalking her, maybe they saw
I don't know how they know anything. Yeah, but they
figure out that this is her sister. They just like
sniffed her out by chance, and then they were like okay,
cool and they all put her down and bite her everywhere,

(01:27:05):
and Brat is one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:27:06):
Yes, And so Malice was like on she was meeting
up with Uncle Ralph. Yes, and Uncle Rov makes her
like turn off her phone when they do these meetings,
so she didn't have a phone on her, so she
turns it back on and notices that there's some voicemails from.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
Her sister and she's like okay, yeah, she listens.

Speaker 4 (01:27:25):
The first one is just like, hey, I have to
postpone our dinner date because of midterms, and Mary Alice
is like, oh yeah, like she's done that before, like
I should realize that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:27:36):
The next voicemail is the terrified one, and Mary Alice
just starts fucking sprinting. Yeah, Like people are staring at
her like what.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
The fuck because she is like super soldier sprinting. She's
running faster than a speeding bullet basically, and she's listening
to this terrified voicemail from her sister, and then the
next voicemail from the werewolves being like, this is your
fault forgetting involved in pact business. Yeah, and so Mary
Alice Malice is like, this is my fault. Yeah, and

(01:28:06):
she's running. She sprints to her sister's building. She like
the neighbors are like.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
They she she comments on, like humans don't know about
the supernatural that is around them, but there is like
a It's basically like humans don't know that there supernatural
things exist, but there is like a general unease.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
Yeah, they can sense that something dangerous is around they
like they can sense the vibes. So they're like locked
in their apartments. Yeah, nobody is coming out of there.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
The place is really early quiet.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:37):
I do want to mention that Uncle Ralph when she
was talking to him about the.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Werewolf thing, he was like, Hi, can you be better
at your job because you didn't tell me anything. Basically,
She's like, yeah, I found them, it's fine, and he's like, well,
what are they doing? Like what's the situation? She's like whatever,
and he says like get good and get more info
or else I'll call Stiletto and have stiletto con and
I made a stupid joke about Soetto being the code

(01:29:01):
name for stu Leto, which I think would have been
funny if that was the case, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (01:29:08):
No, So that is a woman, yes, and we'll meet
here later, and I have lots of thoughts and feelings
about her.

Speaker 3 (01:29:12):
And also I do think that the frickin' werewolves calling.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
Malice and being like, this is your fault is kind
of the stupidest move because you have to know that
that's going to start a war. Yeah, how do you
retaliate like this and then be like, ugh, this is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
Your fault and not expect her to then try and
attack you again.

Speaker 4 (01:29:30):
My thing is, like, I have so many questions about
this man deciding to become Alpha, because like, and other
people in the book make this observation too, when it's
like he's really bad at it, Why would he? First
of all, why did he decide to do it? How
are there people that are following him?

Speaker 1 (01:29:50):
Yeah? Like, and what is his ultimate goal? Like it
did nothing about this man's motivations make sense. I think
he's I think that the symbols, or to at least
the last one, is that he is insane and that
his variations don't make sense because there is no logic
behind them.

Speaker 3 (01:30:07):
Is he is doing things because.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
He's a little crazy. I do have theories about how
he's able to do things, which again I will get
into later.

Speaker 4 (01:30:16):
Yeah, I have a couple of theories as well, but
it's still like there's still parts of it that don't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
Make sense and that's valid. Yeah. So AnyWho, So she
runs into this apartment building and she can smell blood,
like her senses are higher than human she can smell
that there's blood. She smell that it's Cassidy's. Yeah, and
so she gets into the room and she like freaking
tactical rolls into the apartment. But there's no one there,

(01:30:40):
and you would not know that anything was wrong because
the apartment itself is fine. Yeah, Like the main apartment
is untouched. But she goes to Cassidy's room and she
finds her sister like splayed out on the bed, mostly
naked and covered in these bite marks. Yeah, and some
of them are already healing, which is both a good

(01:31:01):
and a bad thing. Yeah, because she's alive and it
looks like she'll survive this. But the fact that the
wounds are healing. This quickly means that she's turning into
a werewolf, right, And so Malice bundles her sister up
and kind of pets her hair and is like, I'm

(01:31:22):
gonna help you. I'm gonna figure this out. We're gonna
get through this, and she takes her away. She takes
her away, She takes her back to her apartment, and
she's like, I need someone to help me get this.
How about that woman whose life I saved? And she well, first,
well she calls the CIA, because apparently the CIA is
in charge of all the supernatural stuff. Yeah, they said
that they got the FBI to do it at first,

(01:31:42):
but the FBI was like empathizing with them too much.
Apparently I can't see that, and so they got the
CIA to do it. And also because that's track the
whole there was the whole thing again of them not
having rights, so like the super normal are not citizens,
and the FBI deals with like domestic problems and the
CIA deals with international problems. And because the super normal

(01:32:04):
are not citizens, that's the CIA's purview, not the FBI. Sure,
And I'm like, this is a weird distinction you're making. Yeah, Anyway, she.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
Confirmed no rights of the Constitution.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
She gets like the CIA to clean up everything and
make it seem like her sister Like they say this
later her sister is apparently they say that she went
on like a service mission to Honduras. Yeah, to explain
why she's gone. Yeah, and they take they take the sister.
She takes her sister back to her place, and we

(01:32:38):
get some more info about the werewolf virus because it's
a virus. Yeah, and it's apparently called like like cantho something.
The acronym is ella wel, which I was like, this
is so camp. Yeah, if you're doing this on purpose
to make it camp, like, good on you. I mean,
they do make fun of that. That's how they refer
to it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
I kind of kind of drive with how camp it is.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
Yeah, it's because it's like it's very presented as like
the other people that Malice works with, like are very
blase about it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
Malice has always felt like, on one hand, feels it
is insensitive, but on the other hand, like doesn't really care. Yeah,
and she's racist until now.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Yeah, until her sister gets bit and has now lost
her rights under the constitution because she is now a werewolf. Yeah,
except that like Malice is kind of a little in
denial about that. But also she says that the government
that they know that Cassidy got bid, they'll come and
steal her away to do experiments on her. Right, So
she's like, I can't. I have to just like protect
her and myself. Yeah, so she she creates like a

(01:33:39):
whole fucking safe room. She does she makes a box,
and this is the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:33:42):
I was at first confused as to.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
Why that she was able to make a box, and
then we later find out that she is in fact
like a metal sculptor and just has this like welding
equipment in her in her workshop, and I'm like, oh,
that actually makes sense. So Cassidy, at first she is
like out of it. Yeah, this whole time, Rory has
just been trying to find an apartment. It keeps swashing

(01:34:04):
back to Rory, and she's like hooking up with a
random woman and then trying to find an apartment. Yeah,
it's not important, but Cassidy is like out of it,
and Malice is trying to be like, hey, you're okay,
Like it's gonna be fine, And then Cassidy sees and
she's like becoming lucid, but she's like freaking out and
then she sees one of the bite marks on her

(01:34:26):
arm and she completely gets triggered and freaks out, and
her heightened state of fear starts causing her to like
shift and go feral. Yeah, but she doesn't fully shift,
and Malie has to put her in a sleeper hole
to like knock her out, yeah, so that she will
calm down again. So, but Malice is like, I need
an expert.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
I need an expert. I can't do this on my own.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
I can't get her to be chill and make it
through this. She ends up finding Rory drugging her.

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):
Yes, she shoots her with a trank dart.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
Yeap. She tracks her to the tell, shoots her with
a trank dart, and brings her back to her apartment.
And this is a whole thing where like again, Rory's
trying to loot the hotel for furniture or whatever, and
while she's running away from this woman with a trank dart,
she tries to like shift in a bathroom because she
doesn't want to mess up the floor. I guess because
it's gross. Yeah, it's a whole thing. She yeah, so

(01:35:21):
she she zip ties her, and I hate this part
of her capturing Rory because when she zip ties Rory
all of her limbs together in wolf form. She takes
her back to her truck and she injects Rory with
wolf Spain, which is most likely the drug that Britt
gave to Rory and Dean the beginning, because it makes

(01:35:44):
it you can't change, Yes, you can't change if you
have a wolf Spain. So she injects her with wolf
Spain to get her to be a person again. And
then so now suddenly she has the zip tied naked
woman in the passenger seat of her car, unconscious and
Rory and Malice.

Speaker 3 (01:36:01):
Malice is looking at her.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
And is uncomfortable with this image because she finds Rory attractive,
and she's uncomfortable with this on two levels because the
biggest problem is that Rory is a werewolf, and Malice
the biggest problem that's the big problem actually is that
Malice doesn't want to does not like that she finds
a animal, in her opinion, attractive, and she refers to

(01:36:29):
Rory as it constantly and she doesn't want to confront
the the thing. Also, again, she is just creeping on
this naked woman who she has drugged and is kidnapping,
and so she decides that she too like romantic interests. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She decides she doesn't want to have to deal with

(01:36:51):
her the fact that she finds this were wolf woman attractive,
so she covers her up in her coat, and she
doesn't like that she has to like put her clothes
on a animal. It's a whole thing. Yeah, but yeah,
she kidnaps Rory and then takes her and just dumps
her naked body on her bed. And then when Rory

(01:37:12):
wakes up.

Speaker 3 (01:37:12):
She's like, what's happening, what's going on? I just assume
I'm hungover.

Speaker 1 (01:37:16):
And then Malice is there, and Malice is like, hey,
do you want some water? And Rory's like okay, and
Mouse like, oh, by the way, I'm Mauie, the boogeyman
of your species.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
Yea, And Ory's like you're a five foot three random woman.

Speaker 1 (01:37:29):
I don't believe you. Yeah, and Malice is like, uh, yeah, whatever,
believe what you want. You're gonna help my sister. And
Rory's like, no, you drugged and kidnap me. I'm leaving,
and Malice is like, I mean you can, but you'll explode. Yeah,
Because it turns out Malice put a bomb on her.
She doesn't explain this right away. Now, she puts like

(01:37:50):
an ankle thing on Rory, and she tells Rory to like, hey,
go get dressed and then you're gonna help my sister.
And Rory's like, no, but I will get dressed because
I'm naked in your house. Yeah. And then she discovered
she has an ankle monitor thing on, and I'm like, oh,
that's a bomb. And she asks like, how are you
gonna keep me here? And Malice won't say, and so
I'm like, yeah, so it's a bomb. And then I
didn't clock bomb. I just clocked tracker. I was like,

(01:38:13):
that's a bomb immediately, and yeah, it's a bomb. She
put C four and she said if you leave this building,
you're it'll explode. And also it has to get reset
every twelve hours. If I dine and don't reset it, it
will explode, So don't mess with me.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
And if you try and take it off, it will explode.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Yeah. And so Rory is upset and obviously because she's
been kidnapped and now has a bombs trapped her. And
here's a thing I'm pretty sure that if Malice had
just asked her for help, Rory would have said yes.
It's heavily implied that if Malice has been like, Hi,

(01:38:52):
my sister just got bit and I need help with her,
and I like, can I pay you, can I do anything? Please?

Speaker 3 (01:39:00):
Can you help her?

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
Rory would have said yes. But instead Malice kidnaps her
and then puts a bomb on her and then tells
her you have to fix my sister. And Malice then
starts making food and starts zoning out thinking about how
she craves meat so bad. You know, she's a vegetarian.
Now this is a recurring thing, which it feeds into

(01:39:23):
my theory water, Okay, And then I wrote Rory agrees
to help Cassie because she literally has no other choice. Yes,
And so Malice shows her to the box that she's
been keeping her sister in, which is a metal box
that is padlocked from the outside. And Rory's like, why,

(01:39:43):
what the hell have you been doing? Yeah? And Cassidy is.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
Feral, Yeah, like straight up, but she is feral because
she is scared.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
Yeah, and uh, And Rory's like, she's acting this way
because you're treating she's acting like an animal. Because you're
treating her like one straight up. Yeah, and like if
you want her to survive, and if you want her
humanity to survive, you have to start treating her like
a human fucking being. Yeah, Because here's the thing is
apparently the way that this works is that the wolf
part of it, there's just like the whole explination that

(01:40:12):
we find out later the werewolves refer to their wolf
self almost like as a separate being. But it is
in fact, which at first I thought it was kind
of a parasite, like the werewolf virus was a parasite
that was passed like through it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:25):
Here's what I was thinking, which is a which is
a part of Shifter romance that I've read before, and
usually when that happens, I like just don't finish and
listens for.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
Parlor where although I don't remember if we've read it
from Parlor before, where it's like people they their their
animalistic part has like a different name, yeah, and like
an entirely different personality. And I'm like, I don't vibe
with this. I don't either. It feels weird. Yeah, But
in this case, Rory explains, like that's how people kind

(01:40:53):
of conceptualize it. But in reality, the wolf is an
aspect of yourself. Yeah, Like like Malice thinks of it
almost like a d id other, like an alter But
in what Rory is saying is that it's kind of
like a part of your brain, like an instinctual like
like a series of instincts and motivations that are at

(01:41:13):
like a lower, more animalistic level that are more aligned
with a where a wolf that you have to learn
how to live in harmony with. You have to accept
that this is part of you now, and part of
you wants these things, and if you're trying to deny
it and fight it, then you you go into this
kind of mental turmoil that will fracture your mind and

(01:41:35):
then you go feral.

Speaker 4 (01:41:36):
The biggest problem that Rory tells Malice is that you
know generally what happens is whatever wolf like sires you is,
like that's the characteristics you kind of take after. Yeah,
and it's like you're you're at a battle with like
you and this wolf, and like the successful transformation is

(01:41:56):
you being in harmony with that. Yes, there have been
instances of the past where Worry has seen someone who's
been bitten by two different wolves. Yeah, and they don't
survive the transformation because the fight between the two wolves
inside the two wolves inside of the fight between the
two wolves like kills you, I think it is. She's

(01:42:17):
like she has seen it successfully happen, but not very often.

Speaker 1 (01:42:20):
And what happens in that situation is the wolves within
the person have to fight for dominance. Yea where it's
like one aspect of yourself will win out over the
other and that becomes the part you have to make
right with. Essentially, the problem with Cassidy is she was
bitten by five different wolves five moons rising No, yeah,

(01:42:42):
five wolves bid her. So she now has five different
personality aspects that are fighting for war in her and
she cannot get a sense of stability between them all.
She doesn't know what parts of her of the the
impulses she's having that she's supposed to follow.

Speaker 4 (01:42:59):
So she can't fully shift because there's five different wolves
trying to shift into something, which it's like she keeps
having like two like different colored eyes are like different
colored fur. It's like she can't get a hold on
any one personality.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
And the thing that would ground her is the parts
of her that are still human. If she was able
to focus on the constant, which is here humanity. Then
she would have a little bit of like, you know,
a rock during the storm in a situation. Yeah, she
would have something that she could hold onto while this
dominance battle was happening. But also the dominant battle can't
happen because freaking Malice keeps drugging her Malice in order

(01:43:36):
to clean her pen. Essentially, she keeps drugging her sister,
putting sedatives in her food, which she's just been feeding
her raw steak. Yeah, she's been injecting it with sedatives
and feeding it to her sister because it doesn't seem
like Cassidy wants to eat plants. She only kind of
seems like she wants steak, and she will eat meat,
but only if it's like human body temperature. So it's

(01:43:58):
been microwaved, rugged raw steak that she's been throwing at
her sister in this metal cage, and she drugs her
sister every night so she can hose it down to
get rid of the feces. Yeah, ca and Malice is
just doing this and Rory's like this is crazy and humane. Yeah,
go make your sister like an actual cooked meal right now,

(01:44:20):
like actually cook the food yeah, and stop drugging her,
because if she is drugged, then the wolves are not
able to complete their dominance battle.

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
You're just prolonging the situation.

Speaker 1 (01:44:31):
And if you are treating her like an animal, then
she can't remember that she's supposed to be human.

Speaker 3 (01:44:37):
Yeah, So, like what's wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (01:44:40):
So part of.

Speaker 4 (01:44:41):
This is like Malice kinda not Malice. Rory kind of
curls up next to Cassidy and they're like pack bonded.

Speaker 1 (01:44:49):
Yeah. Cassidy like sniffs her and realizes that she is
a wolf and not a threat. Yeah, and like very
much views Malice as a threat because Malice put her
in a box yeah, and keeps drugging her. Yeah, and
so please start yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:45:04):
So and at one point, like they fall asleep, Malice
walks into the box and like she's like I need
Like she tells Rory like I need to talk to you,
and Cassidy wakes up and is like, please don't.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
Take her from me. Yeah, And like Malice is trying
to get Rory to leave and and Cassidy is like, no,
please let her stay. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:45:28):
Yeah, and like like all of a sudden, there's this
bit of her sister that's showing up, but then like
immediately gets taken over and she and Rory's like closed
the fucking door. Yeah, because like she's going feral again
because you're you're not treating her like a fucking person.

Speaker 1 (01:45:45):
You're not listening to her. Yeah, because Malice responded when
Rory's like, please don't take her, Malice is like, oh,
I'm just gonna for a little bit. She won't be
going very far. I'm just gonna take her away for
a little bit. And that upset Cassidy. And that's the thing,
is like, stop upsetting your sister.

Speaker 3 (01:46:01):
The reason why she's freaking out is because she's upset.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
She's upset, she doesn't know what's going on, and you're
not treating her like your sister. And also, and this
bothers me so deeply, Malice is not explained to Cassidy
what is happening now. She at the very beginning apparently
said like, oh I tried to, but then she wasn't
listening to me. It's like she was traumatized. You have
made no effort to explain to her what is happening.

(01:46:26):
You've also made no effort to comfort her after a
traumatic incident. You just put on a box. Yeah. Yeah, So,
like Rory is pissed that Malice is treating her sister
a day and is not explaining, Hey, a, where will
it exist be? You're turning into one? Yeah, none, that's
been explained to to Cassidy. Also, Rory never explains from
what I understanding, like she kind of does.

Speaker 4 (01:46:46):
She starts like she tries to explain bits and pieces
but not all at once.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
Yeah, but at least she's still doing better. She's she's
improving because Rory is actually like trying.

Speaker 4 (01:46:57):
To well that's what I mean, Like, Rory is at
least doing better than yeah, than Malice, which the.

Speaker 1 (01:47:01):
Bar is on the floor, but still God, and Malice
is really angry that Rory is being help. It's so
stupid because the thing is Malice brought Rory here to
help her sister. But then as she's watching Rory comfort
her sister, she gets jealous that she's not the one
fixing Cassidy. Yeah, She's like, why can't that be me?
I should be the one helping Cassidy. She's so dumb.

(01:47:22):
But she doesn't ever actually try to do that. And
it could be a thing where it's like her traum
she was traumatized by the government. She has become really
stoic because of the trauma she's been through. Yeah, and
you could make commentary about how she is at war
with her stoicism and her own expectations that she should

(01:47:45):
be able to be there comforting her sister, but she
feels incapable of doing that. That deeper level of introspection
is not present at all. She's just jealous that Rory's
the one doing it, not her, So she goes to
her workshop to just like breaks stuff to feel better
about it. She just goes down there and starts breaking stuff,

(01:48:06):
and then Rory eventually finds her down there and is like, hey,
you need to and like She's like, hey, you need to,
like freaking calm down because your sister is picking up
on your hostile energy and that is freaking her out.
She's more sensitive to your mood. Now you need to be.

Speaker 3 (01:48:22):
Chill and mouse like shut up, I'll kill you.

Speaker 1 (01:48:25):
And Cassie's like, Rory is like, if you do that, fine,
but she'll die. Like, your sister's gonna die if you
if you don't want me help her, and if you
don't freaking calm down. And also, I'm not gonna let
you be around your sister until you do. Yeah, and
Malice is like fine, whatever, and then she tries to

(01:48:48):
be constructive.

Speaker 3 (01:48:49):
I guess at this part in the story I thought
that like.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Okay, she's trying to learn and grow, but then she
does stuff that pisses me off later yeah, I mean constantly. Yeah,
so what like at one point like, yeah, she's trying
to save her sister. She's got Rory there.

Speaker 4 (01:49:11):
There's like a couple moments where like they almost make
out or fuck, and Rory's upset because she's like, I
know you like me, just fuck me.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
Like that part, this whole bit is so so this
what kind of the catalyst for that is is Uncle
Ralph comes by and announced because days a boy, I
can't remember if that had happened before or after. It
happens before. This is the catalyst that starts off this
part of that part of their dynamic because days pass
with Malice just kind of like this is the new normal.

(01:49:41):
There's a bit in the book where Rory walks around
described mouse as living quarters and it's like, girl, you
live like this, yeah, because she's basically living in like squalor. Yeah,
it's like an open.

Speaker 4 (01:49:51):
Old warehouse loft kind of place with fake walls everywhere
to give it a sense of like here is where
this place, but they're like they're not even like walls, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:50:04):
They're like they're room papers. And also like the bathroom
doesn't have a shower. It has like a bucket and
then a shower head, and there's barely room to bathe,
and it was like there's a bunch of stuff that
It's like, clearly this was not a space that was
meant to be lived in, and very little effort has
been made made to make it into a livable space.

(01:50:25):
And so yeah, it's like, girl, people like this anyway.
Days pass Malice has just been hanging out around her
house like being passive aggressive, I guess, while Rory tries
to fix her sister, and then Uncle Ralph shows up,
like Hi, why are you not working? Yeah? Hey girl,
remember that mission you're on. I haven't heard from you
in days, And Rory's like, oh, I hate you. Shut up,

(01:50:47):
Uncle Ralph like a petul or. Malice is like that,
like a petulant child, and Rory at first goes to hide,
but Uncle Ralph can tell that, like someone else is there,
someone is here. And that, and he's like, what's been
distracting you? And Malice is too stupid to think of
an actual, like reason for why she has not been
doing her job for a week basically, and so she's

(01:51:09):
like uh uh.

Speaker 3 (01:51:11):
And so Rory comes out in human form and.

Speaker 1 (01:51:14):
She's like, oh, hey, baby, who's.

Speaker 3 (01:51:16):
This And she's dressed in Malice's clothes and pretending.

Speaker 1 (01:51:19):
To be Malice's new girlfriend. Yeah, And Uncle Ralph is like,
oh haha, I see You've gotten a new girl, and
that's what's distracting you. Also, I can't say that i'm
your secret government handler around the civilian, so I'll play
nice right now. And Malice kind of has to play
along with the idea that this woman, who she still

(01:51:41):
refers to in her brain as the female, she's no
a name. She doesn't know Rory's name. She is not asked. Yeah,
And so she realizes in this moment that she can't
say Rory's name, Rory. She learns Rory's name through Rory
introducing herself to uncle Uncle Ralph. Yeah, and she's like, oh,
that's that's her name. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:52:01):
I'm like, it's been a week.

Speaker 1 (01:52:02):
Girl. You could ask you could ask at any point whatever,
and she has to then confront the fact that she's
really horny over Rory wearing her clothes because Rory looks
really sexy in your clothes, and so she's like, oh no,
she's sexy. Oh no, no, I like that she's wearing
my clothes. And she's like cuddling up to me pretending
to be my girlfriend, and that's hot. I hate that.

(01:52:23):
And then Uncle Ralph brings her way to talk to
her privately and it's like, hey, I get that you're
like having a girlfriend. Stress relief is good, but also like,
you know the rules that you're not supposed to like
make any kind of connection connections, and also, can you
do your job? Can you actually do your job please?
And I am expecting a report about these wear wolves

(01:52:45):
in a week or no, not a week tomorrow, he says,
I want to report on my desk tomorrow about this,
and she's like okay, fine, whatever, And so then she
goes back to Rory and she's like, so that wasn't
my real uncle, and Rory's like, yeah, I know, I
figured that much.

Speaker 3 (01:52:59):
Figure that out.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
And she's like, is Rory your real name? And Rory's like, yeah,
I'm named after my grandma, who is from Iceland and
my family is icelandic settlers who came to the to
the US to settle the frontier. And mouse like what
because apparently the government didn't know where wolves could live
that long?

Speaker 4 (01:53:18):
Yeah, there's like Malice is like there have been rumors
that werewolves have longer lives, but she didn't realize like
how long?

Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
But I'm over here. Have you never talked to one?

Speaker 3 (01:53:29):
Yeah, this is a question you could figure out.

Speaker 1 (01:53:31):
By talking to a were wolf. What, Like, it seems
like the government doesn't know a single freaking gosh dang
thing about these people. I mean, I think they don't care.
I don't think they care either. But here's the thing is,
like it's so apparent how little they know. Yeah, and
it's really obvious things. There's like, honestly a point where
Rory asked her, like, what do you know about werewolf transformation? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
And uh, Malice is more than you think. And Rory
internally is like I doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:53:58):
That, Yeah, because it's turns out Rory's right, Yeah, because
they don't know a single freaking thing about any and
they don't seem again, don't seem to care at all. Yeah,
and it's so freaking wild. So she Rory is also
like trying to endear herself to Malice because she's still thinking, yeah,

(01:54:18):
this woman's hot, but she is my kidnapper, and she
is trying to like, she's telling her all this stuff
about herself from the angle of trying to humanize herself
to Malice. Yeah, She's like, I'm gonna tell you about
my family from when I was a human and my
human family so that you think of me as a person, yeah,
because you don't seem to think of me as a

(01:54:39):
person right now. And she even calls out that Malice
treats her like an animal because when like, Malice, like,
is that your real name? Rory's like, why do you
think animals can't have names? Yeah? And then Malice feels
guilty about that because yes, she did, in fact think
that animals couldn't have names, And for some reason, Rory

(01:55:00):
feels bad about making Malice feel bad the woman who
strapped a bomb to her leg. Yeah, and I'm like, girl,
get up, Yeah, get Jesus Christ. So anyway, honestly, she
find Jesus where wolf Jesus? Even so, she then gets
a call from her mom this is where we weren
that they've been lying in saying Cassie's in Honduras. There's

(01:55:21):
a rant about like, uh, this is where I lost
all respect for Malice because Malice is talking about her
job to Cassidy, about how she hunts the supernormal, and
she starts going on to in a rant about how
this super normal can't be trusted to police themselves. She's like,
your kind can't doesn't care about humans and can't be

(01:55:43):
trusted to watch after them, so that's why I'm necessary.
And she's like, where were any of you when Cassidy
was attacked? And Rory is like, well, I was probably
in a basement somewhere trying to heal from the wounds
I got when my family.

Speaker 3 (01:55:58):
Was murdered and taken from me.

Speaker 1 (01:56:01):
And Malice is like, don't talk about your family being murdered,
like it's anything like my loss, And Rory's like, what loss?

Speaker 3 (01:56:09):
Your sister is still alive. She's right there.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Yeah, And the whole time, Malice has been treating Cassidy
like she's been dead. Basically, she's been talking about her
like she's her sister, but she's been treating the situation
like Cassidy is gonna is basically dead and thinking like, oh,
I just lost my sister because she's a werewolf now,
and Rory's like, what are you talking about. Your sister
is still alive. It is not the same thing as

(01:56:35):
me having lost members of my family to death. What
are you talking about? And I wrote Malice tries to
comfort her boom and then literally in the book, Rory
is so starved for connection that she accepts the comfort
because she is so desperate for any kind of connection,

(01:56:55):
any kind of connection and kindness at all, including from
her captor, who is racist, yeah, and hates because again,
Malice is also touched starved and doesn't have a connection,
and she is like, I don't know why, but like,
holding this crying woman, this crying animal creature feels nice,

(01:57:17):
Like I like having her in my arms because I'm
super touch starved. But also she's a werewolfh so I
should hate her. And then they both get horny and
they both get harny. But yeah, and Rory consents that
she's horny and is like, hey, like make out, make out,
and yeah, Malice is like absolutely not, fuck you, I

(01:57:39):
hate you. And the thing is she keeps thinking in
the back of her mind, like, well, you made out
with Carla, like you like Carla, And then she keeps thinking, well,
Carla can freaking mind me control me, So it's not real.
My feelings for Karla are because Carla makes me feel
that way, she makes me be horny, So she knows
that's not the truth. She's so she's actively lying to
herself about how the fact she's attracted to Carla, blaming

(01:58:01):
Karla for it. And then she gets angry that she's
finding Rory attractive. And then and I said, in true
racist fashion, Malice angry insists that Rory is disgusting and
that she'd never be into a mongrel like her, before
running shamefully to jerk off in another room. Insane, she

(01:58:22):
goes into another room and masturbates and masturbates, and Rory
also decides, I'm just gonna jerk off over her because
I'm turned on, so I'm just gonna I'm gonna her.
She justifies this by her like wolf being restless and
Malice is hot, and also apparently Rory's like because she's
not gonna actually kill me though. So toxic geary is men?

(01:58:46):
What is no toxic geary is women? Oh it's women
o yuris ladies, yowie is men, yowie as men. Yes, Okay,
toxic yeary to the extreme, except except I just can't
get on the fact that malice is so racist. Oh yeah,
toxic derogatory, toxic derogatory times, toxic compliment, sometimes toxic spicy,

(01:59:07):
This toxic gross because it's literally like she sees this
woman as subhuman and is angry at herself for being
attracted to her and tries to blame Rory for her
attraction to her, And this is there. You can make
an allegory with this, with the way that like people
who are homophobic sometimes the author was trying to probably

(01:59:30):
she's trying to do like an internalized homophobia thing. It
kind of feels like where like except again, she's made
this a different species of people, so it becomes a
racism thing. But she's like, how dare you make me
haunt for you? Clearly it's your fault that I'm having
these feelings, and it makes me hate you that I
feel this way, But I am going to go furiously

(01:59:52):
jerk off over the idea of you watching me do this,
And I'm like, why am I supposed to like them together? Yeah?
Why am I supposed to like them together? The only
thing that they seem to have in common is that
they are hot for each other. They find each other attractive.
Rory's reasoning for being like, oh, I like her actually
is that she doesn't actually think that Malice will kill her. Otherwise,

(02:00:13):
Malice has been nothing but cruel to her and has
proven that she doesn't think of werewolves as deserving the.

Speaker 3 (02:00:19):
Same rights as people.

Speaker 1 (02:00:22):
And Malice again doesn't see Rory as a person until.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
Just now and hates that she does see Rory as.

Speaker 1 (02:00:32):
A person and just finds her sexy, And then it
hates that she finds her sexy.

Speaker 3 (02:00:39):
I don't think that these two are chemistry.

Speaker 1 (02:00:41):
They don't. I don't like them together. I don't either.
I was actually because here's the thing, Cassidy seems to
actually like Rory, and Rory's very sweet to her, and
I was like, why can't Cassidy end up with Rory?
What about that ham? But as far as we know,
Casid straight, yeah, And I'm upset about that. I also

(02:01:03):
think they've paired her off. They do. At the end
of the book, after I so Malice flicks her bean,
imagining Rory watching or doing it and comes so hard
she falls over. Then after she hears.

Speaker 3 (02:01:14):
Rory yelling for her.

Speaker 1 (02:01:15):
This is when I was like, why can't Cassidy and
Rory en up together? It's a shame Cassidy straight in
this book. And then plot twist Cassidy's bisexual. We find
this immediately out as soon as I was thinking, like, God,
it sucks that Rory and Cassidy can't be together. We
have a POV moment where Cassidy thinks, where's Rory. I
kind of want to sleep with her? And she muses

(02:01:37):
on how she has pooled around with girls in the past.
Normally she likes men, she prefers men, but she has
pulled around with girls in the past and kind of
wants to sleep with Rory. I love the bye. We
you know what we stand, We stand, we stand. And
she also can smell that her sister and Rory are
both horny. She can smell that now I also do.

(02:02:03):
And Cassidy has been just like screaming because she wakes
up and she's she starts feeling really weird, and she
starts feeling uncomfortable, and she is in her box and
she's screaming. So Rory calls for Malice to come see
what's up, and Rory goes in there and rips the
door off the box to get in. Yeah, and it's
comforting her. I wrote, Rory rips the padlocked door off

(02:02:24):
like a mom lifting a car off a toddler. Love it.
That is the energy very much here. And she Malice
shows up and then Rory, and that makes Cassidy upset.
Shory's like, go away, you're making your sister upset, and
Malice go sits on a box and it seems like

(02:02:45):
Malice's or Cassie's more upset, and Rory comes out after
she falls asleep.

Speaker 3 (02:02:48):
And is like, hey, your sister's going into heat. Hey,
guess what your sister's going into heat?

Speaker 1 (02:02:54):
And Malice is like, what do you mean heat? And
this is another thing the government didn't know that where
wolves do apparently, despite the fact that it happens every month.
What do you even know about where wolves If you
don't know they go into heat and they can live forever,
what is.

Speaker 4 (02:03:04):
Even I feel like you should just like, if you're
you're describing like they're like dogs, you should just.

Speaker 1 (02:03:10):
Know you should understand.

Speaker 3 (02:03:11):
Yeah, but they do dog stuff and also.

Speaker 1 (02:03:13):
Live forever a par of it apparently. So she's like, Hey,
your sister's gonna go to heat and this is bad
because it will kill her. If she doesn't fully shift
before she go fully goes into heat, then all of
the wolves inside of her are gonna try and come
out at once to find a mate, and that's gonna
kill her.

Speaker 3 (02:03:33):
And if she somehow survives that.

Speaker 1 (02:03:34):
When the full moon happens, all the wolves are gonna
be forced to come out of her also, and that's
gonna kill her. So we have to make sure that
she fully shifts before that happens. And I think you
need to let her go on a run. You need
to let her like actually like have her instincts fulfilled.

Speaker 4 (02:03:51):
And mals is like very against this, but eventually, like
I mean it's presented as like this.

Speaker 1 (02:03:57):
Or or death had no choice. Yeah yeah, yeah. She
also is like, fine, we have to do this at night,
and Rory's like, don't tell me how to wear wolf. Yeah,
She's like, how do you think we've been like away
from humans for so many years? I'm not fucking Stu. Yeah,
I'm not an idiot. Again. I hate Malice for this
because she's so belittling but anyway, they they talk about

(02:04:22):
werewolf dynamics, and eventually Malice acknowledges that she doesn't know
anything about werewolves. Also, she thinks Rory's cute and I'm like,
I hate you. Don't shut up. So they go off
to the park. The park and doesn't say which park,
just a park.

Speaker 3 (02:04:42):
It kind of doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (02:04:44):
So they in the middle of the night, and Malice.

Speaker 3 (02:04:47):
Keeps being horny brained at Rory the whole.

Speaker 1 (02:04:49):
Time, where she's just kind of like, uh, hot lady,
And I said, Rory's being condescending towards Malice. Yes, good anyway,
so they give I see some wolf spane so she
doesn't flip out in the car because that would be
really awkward and unsafe. Yeah, but then they make it
to the park and Rory's like all right, used to hear.

Speaker 3 (02:05:09):
Cassidy is starting to get her wolffish ness back.

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
The wolf spane's wearing off, so they go off on
a run and mouse like, you have four hours until
the bomb's close. Yeah, I sent off the proximity thing
and about the bomb, but you have four hours until
the timer of the bomb needs to be reset, and
which is like, why didn't you just reset it to
twelve Yeah, why didn't you reset it before? You? Let
I guess so that she didn't run off with Cassidy.
But there she still can't run off very far in

(02:05:34):
twelve hours. One would think, I don't know, man, because
then it's a whole thing where where Malice is like
worried they're not going to make it back in time. Yeah.
Like it's stupid, is what it is. It's stupid, is
what it is. Chelsea. The bomb's going to go off
in four hours, So they run off.

Speaker 3 (02:05:50):
Rory's trying to like get Cassie to run.

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
Cassie isn't going to do it first, so Rory just
like it's like kites her a little bit, like plays
with their wereolf and sings toget her to run. Yeah,
And then they play fight a little bit and she
can see that Cassie's eyes are shifting colors again. They're
going from my green to red to blue. And she
sees the blue and that's the same color that Britt's
eyes were, and she knows that Britt was one of

(02:06:14):
the wolves that better. Yeah, and that's traumatic. Yeah, but
she's still trying to like focus on helping Cassidy, and
then there's like it seems like the plan to like
have her run around seems to be working, and it
Cassie does fully shift. Yeah, and she's making like a

(02:06:35):
lot of really gross noises because it's really gross and
world will shift. It's very body horror chef kiss and
Malice runs up because she hears a lot of gross
body horror noises and she sees her sister fully shifted
into this like brindled mismatched for big old wolf with
one blue eye and one red eye. There are two
wolves inside you. You have more than you have five

(02:06:57):
wolves asciety.

Speaker 4 (02:06:58):
And the thing is, I don't think she says it
out right, but Rory's looking at her like alpha.

Speaker 1 (02:07:04):
Yeah, because apparently Cassidy is like freaking were wolf. Jesus,
She's like super she's super strong. She's super strong and
super special, and she has a super low, deep howl
that's like super resonant and spooky. And there's another one
they see Louis in the woods. Yeah, like the wolf
Lewis that he just runs up and and this is
such a weird part of the book because he rolls

(02:07:26):
up and long enough for already be like ugh, Louis
and then he leaves. Yeah, and she's like, I'm not
gonna pursue that. That's that's for a different time. That's
for another time.

Speaker 3 (02:07:35):
And then she's like, Okay, we're gonna go hunting Cassidy.

Speaker 1 (02:07:38):
And Cassidy is fully in the wolf zone now and
she smells a rabbit and she's chasing the rabbit and
she's super strong and super fast. She's also this is
her first time being a wolf, so she keeps tripping over,
she keeps she runs into a rock because she doesn't
know how fast she can get. She's just like stumbling
over herself.

Speaker 3 (02:07:55):
And she doesn't catch the rabbit, but she is just like.

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
It reminds me of when Menda was a puppy. She
took hers herself out.

Speaker 3 (02:08:01):
Yeah, she runs so much, took her to shelf out.

Speaker 1 (02:08:03):
She's just a little she's just a little puppy, except
she's giant apparently.

Speaker 4 (02:08:06):
And they get back to they get back to Malice
and uh Rory transforms and it's just fully nude yep.

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):
And Malice is like okay, yep.

Speaker 4 (02:08:16):
And then it's like, well we have It's like she's
like they've brought a cage in case they have to
bring uh.

Speaker 1 (02:08:24):
And now Rory is like, this is not gonna happen, yeah,
because she that cage will not hold her like I've
seen her freaking Jesus wolf form. She is too strong.

Speaker 3 (02:08:33):
She is the alpha of alpha's, she is the she's
the Sigma wolf.

Speaker 1 (02:08:36):
Oh my god. She You can't contain her. So you're
gonna have to convince her to change back because she's
gonna have to be a wolf. You're gonna have to
ask her to be a person, and Malice is physically
incapable of doing that because she at first tries to
be like, okay, Cassidy, time to go back in the box,
time to be human again, and Cassidy won't yeh. And

(02:08:57):
Rory is like, ask her, ask her a request, and
Malice Key's being like, Cassidy, it's time to be a
person again, not asking yeah, And she gets pissed off
that's not working until she finally deigns to say please.
She finally stoops slow enough to say please to her sister,
and her whole internal monologue is about how like, ugh,

(02:09:18):
Cassie's always been stubborn, but she always just like does
it eventually, and I hate her I hate her so much.
And then Rory's like, hey, can you please just like
actually be polite to your sister for once. Yeah, So
she does say please, and Cassie turns back into a person,
which is great. They are driving back. There is a
moment where this is you were talking about this earlier, yes,

(02:09:41):
where Cassidy is like feeling like not carsick, just feeling
like overheated. Oh yes, and can find is like just
stick your head out the window, the window down and
let the wind blow over your face. It helps. And
I'm was like, oh my god, she's a dog with
her head out the window. Love it. Love that. So yeah,
they run back to the house. Like Malice doesn't even

(02:10:03):
stop the car, she just gets out and runs inside
because the bomb has ten minutes left until it was
gonna go off, so she has to reset it and
she does. It's fine, and she also is like, I'm
gonna take it off. Yeah, And so in the process
of taking off the ankle bomb, this is the first
time Cassidy has been lucid like this entire time for
any significant portion and She's like, wait a second, why

(02:10:24):
what is that? And Rory's like and one of them
explains it's a bomb, and she's like, have you been
holding this woman against her will? Yeah, this is the realization.
Cassie suddenly has that hey, her Malice kidnapped this woman. Yeah,
her Malice, her sister. Her sister, Malice has kidnapped this woman.
And Malice refuses to explain, does not explain a single thing.

(02:10:46):
So Rory does, Rory does. Yeah. Rory's like yeah, uh yeah,
and Cassie just storms off and stirs the boogeyman. Yeah. Yeah,
her sister is an assassin and she kills werewolves and also, yeah,
she put a bomb on me. And also Malice is
pissed off that her sister's upset with her for kidnapping
a woman, and she decides that she's gonna check her

(02:11:07):
emails and leave the two of them to be angry together.
And she gets an email.

Speaker 4 (02:11:13):
So this is the part where I'm like, oh no,
it's definitely happening in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (02:11:16):
Oh yeah, because because she gets an email, yes, that
is like, check out this funny link. And it's a
BuzzFeed link. Ah, I see, it's a BuzzFeed link. And
apparently apparently the government has been using BuzzFeed to send
their agents coded messages. What a time we're in again?

Speaker 4 (02:11:35):
And like, at the time, it didn't like clock for me,
but yeah, since knowing that it was published in twenty seventeen,
I'm like, Yeah for me, I'm just.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
Like, again, what camp? What camp? I kind of love that.
But there's also a bit where she she sees this
sauce email when she's like, no one ever got a
virus from opening an email? Right, I'm a girl, like
someone whose husband is in it? Yeah, like I sended, girl,
you are correct, it is unlikely that you'll get a
virus from opening an email. But it is not impossible.

(02:12:05):
It's not impossible. Why did Why did your training apparently
included Katana but it did not I like internet security
apparently at all. Yeah, And in the BuzzFeed article, there's
a cipher and she decodes the cipher and then it's like,
oh no, and she runs up Stilettos coming to visit.
Stiletto is coming to visit, and Rory is trying to

(02:12:26):
explain the whole like, hey, werewolves thing, because apparently, again
no one is explaining this to Cassidy, and so she's like, hey,
you're a werewolf now, and Cassie's like, werewolves aren't real,
and Rory's like, what do you think has been happening?
I was thinking hallucinating, yeah, And Rory's like, I mean,
I yeah, I guess, but no, werewolves are real and
you're one of them now. And then she explains the

(02:12:49):
whole situation about Malice kidnapping her, and Malice refuses to
explain a single thing. She comes up to be like, Hi,
we have a problem, and Cassie's like, hey, so I'm
a werewolf and you kill wear wolves. You didn't tell
me that you kill supernatural creatures, and also that you
kidnap this woman, and Malice again refuses to explain a
thing at all, and Cassidy gets really mad and Rury

(02:13:13):
is like, it's whatever, and I'm like, you need therapy,
all of you. All of you need therapy, and so
Malice says, and oh god, so many bricks.

Speaker 3 (02:13:22):
One brick would not take her down. I need like
a gun.

Speaker 1 (02:13:25):
That fires bricks at high speeds. That's what I need, Yeah,
to shoot at Malice because one brick would not demolish
her like I want it to. So Malice explains that
somebody is coming or back up is being sent basically
because the government is not pleased with the zero work
she has done in the last week, so they hired

(02:13:45):
somebody else to come in and help her out, and
that person is coming and they can't know about Rury
in Cassidy. So Malice takes them to a safe house
that she has in this kind of run down part
of town, and she just drops them there. She's like, Okay,
be here, now, be here, stay here, don't be suspicious,
don't be suspec suspicious. Don't be suspicious, and they, like

(02:14:10):
Malice in Cassidy, bicker about this Malice again. Malice insists
parentheses stupidly that the government does not know about her
safe house. Yeah, despite the fact that when Uncle Ralph
dropped by her house, she made a comment mentally that like, oh,
he's never been here as far as I know, but
he sure seems to know the layout of the place.
And I'm like, why are you this stupid? So why

(02:14:31):
are you so dumb? What's wrong with you as a person? Anyway?
So yeah, Malice leaves and goes and greets Hey, did
you watch Buffy? Yeah, you know, the second season. So
Buffy dies at the end of the first season and
is resurrected, but because of that happening, a new slayer

(02:14:52):
is so now there's like two slayers instead of one. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:14:55):
Yeah, in my head, this woman is that second slayer.

Speaker 1 (02:14:59):
But I let her. Yeah, that's fair. Stiletto was described
as being like a very slight woman. Her name is Simone.
I think I think that they say her real name
is Simone, and she has called Stiletto both because she
is very like direct and targeted, but also because she
is very like slender. And they describe her as a

(02:15:20):
black woman too. Okay, I can't I may have glossed
over that part I in the racist werewolf story. I
feel like maybe this shouldn't be your only black woman.
The other black man that we know Conqui was Dean.
He got eaten yep, alive yep. Not great, not great.
But also Soletto shows up and she is very by

(02:15:40):
the book. Yeah, she's very like if the directives don't
say to do it, then like I don't care, I out
follow the directives at all costs. Yeah, And she and
Malice kind of have beef in the sense that she
like hates they.

Speaker 3 (02:15:55):
Hate each other, but also they have to work together and.

Speaker 4 (02:15:59):
That Alice has uh, still has familial connections, yes, and
she thinks that's stupid. She thinks that's stupid, which like
she's not like super wrong. Yeah, but also like I'm
not saying it's a good thing to be like no
connections ever. I'm just saying, like she's not wrong that,
like it is stupid that you have familiar connections.

Speaker 1 (02:16:19):
Why are you even in this program? Why are you here?
Why are you here? Why are you here? I don't understand. So,
while Malice is like waiting for Seletto to show up
and to be ominous about it, Cassidy and Cassie's like,
I want to go on a run. I don't want
to be cooped up in this house. Yeah, we were
told to stay here and lay low, but I don't
want to do that. And Rory's like, well, when we

(02:16:42):
were in the park, I managed to like I sensed
one of my old packmates there. We should go find him. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:16:48):
Also, this is the thing I thought was going to
be a Chekhov's gun.

Speaker 1 (02:16:50):
The front door is booby trapped with a different bomb,
and like Cassidy almost triggers it when she goes out,
Malice doesn't tell them that the front door is booby trapped.
The only that they don't set it off is because
Rory notices that there's a bomb on the door and
Cassie would have activated it and killed herself had she
walked through that door. And Rory points it out, and

(02:17:12):
I'm just like, why did Malice not tell them the
door was bonded? Because that would involve explaining things which
she is apparently allergic to. Yeah, she is, she's physically incapable.
She has an explanation in tolerance. Yeah. So anyway, they
go out and they're like, we're going to see if
we can find because if Lewis is alive, then maybe

(02:17:34):
other members of my old pack are also maybe we
can reform them and then they can we can all
go against McTavish. The ygo alpha. Yeah, And Cassie's like,
I'm chill with that. I'm awarewolf now and also I
like you, Rory, so but yeah, let's do that. I'm
pissed at my sister. I like you. Yeah. So then

(02:17:55):
Stiletto shows up and Malice and her have like beef,
but then Soto was like, you haven't been doing your job, yeah,
like you don't even like, do you even know anything
about the new like werewolf pack and what they've been
doing and what they and Malice is like, oh, I've
checked on them like a week ago, and Soltos like
they've they've been stealing cars.

Speaker 3 (02:18:16):
They have been robbing trucks and like super blatantly.

Speaker 1 (02:18:20):
I have a video of them doing it. Ye, You're like,
I like, like, how in the middle of the day
they've been doing picked this up? And Malice is like, oh,
because she has not been paying attention at all. She's like, well,
I had other things to monitor, and it's like, girl,
this was your job. Yeah, and so yeah, so Malie

(02:18:42):
doesn't really realize that she hasn't been paying attention at all.
And so then so I was like, whatever, I'm here
to help now, let's just do this by the.

Speaker 3 (02:18:51):
Book and kill those guys.

Speaker 1 (02:18:53):
Yeah, And so they start making a plan to hunt
down the pack and stop them from doing all these
robberies and whatnot.

Speaker 4 (02:19:02):
Meanwhile, yes, Cassidy and Rory are like tracking down.

Speaker 1 (02:19:06):
Lewis and they're sniffing him out. They're sniffing him out.

Speaker 4 (02:19:10):
Rory's like, I'm pretty sure he's by himself. Yeah, Like
I'm pretty sure he's right now a lone wolf they
find him.

Speaker 1 (02:19:15):
It's not the sewer. They think it's a sewer, but
it's actually like a storm drain. Yeah, it's like a
big water runoff drain thing. They find Lewis.

Speaker 4 (02:19:23):
Turns out it's not just Lewis, it is several members
of the pack that escaped.

Speaker 1 (02:19:27):
Yes, And there's like a moment where they like, we're
like who, like why are you? Like to Rory, like
you abandoned us? Why are you here? They're pissed off
at Rory because she ran away. Yeah, and Lewis is
kind of like the de facto alpha right now. He's
the most dominant wolf in this little group. Yeah, and

(02:19:47):
so when Rory isn't Like, when Lewis confronts Rory, Cassidy
gets really protective of her, and she kind of tries
to like shove Lewis away, and in doing so, she
unintentionally like activates this kind of dominance competition because she
has challenged Lewis and she wins.

Speaker 3 (02:20:08):
She beats She beats him so bad, she beats these
so bad.

Speaker 1 (02:20:11):
Rory's concerned that she's gonna kill him. She isn't even
fully shifted. She is like apparently only the super old
strong where wolves can exist in like a half shifted form,
and Cassie like half shifts and almost breaks this man's neck. Yeah,
and Rory has to be like, hey, you won. He's
not gonna be He's not gonna try and beat you, right,

(02:20:33):
And Lewis is like a dog and he's nodding like Nope, yeah,
not gonna do that. And he talks Cassidy down, and
then all the other wolves are like alpha. They're all
like rolling up to her being like, oh, you are
the alpha now, and Cassie's like, what's happening? And now
it's like, all right, well, I guess we got to
bring him all back to the house. I guess these

(02:20:53):
are your dogs. Now, these are your wolves. And apparently
that's that's offensive to say, to call them dogs, to
imply that they're domesticated. They are the woven, they're the Lichens,
the Wolven, that's their words. And there's all this while
they're doing that, all this is happening. Malice and soetto
go to the hub and they check out the trucker
and the hub where the all the other their pack

(02:21:14):
used to be, and they realize, oh, they're gone. They
left a while ago, and Malice didn't notice, and it's like, gosh,
dang it, now we gotta go find out where they
are again.

Speaker 3 (02:21:25):
I gotta go talk to Carla again.

Speaker 1 (02:21:27):
Yeah, I gotta go talk to Carla. So she gets
away from Stiletto to go check on Rory and Cassidy.
She comes back to the house and finds that they're
not there, and then, uh, what was that?

Speaker 3 (02:21:43):
Where am I?

Speaker 1 (02:21:43):
So then Rory rolls up and she and Malice are like, oh, hey,
they fuck there. I'm horny. Yeah, they just straight they fuck. Yeah.
I just wrote Rory is there. There's some light banter
before Malice gives into her desires in parentheses, acknowledging that
Rory is a person, and then they make out and

(02:22:08):
then they like, there's there. Yeah, there's a lot of
boob stuff happening, because I wrote specifically at one point
Rory sucks Mouse's nipple and Malice nuts. Just from that,
there's a lot of pussy is said a lot.

Speaker 4 (02:22:24):
Yes it is, And like generally speaking, I have no
problem with that word for some reason in this in
this book, And maybe it's because it's set a lot
because I don't like the voice actress.

Speaker 1 (02:22:33):
I don't know, but something about it, like every single time,
I'm like, I hate this for me. I wasn't really
upset about that at all. Like they talk about like
fingering pussies, they talk about touching people's clits, but there's
a lot of also.

Speaker 4 (02:22:46):
Like you know, what I think is the problem. Yeah,
is it's not when they're actually having sex. It's that
it constantly is like my pussy clenches, and it's like.

Speaker 1 (02:22:55):
That's right, that's like, I okay, it's it's a lot
of like it's it's a lot of that is it's
like frequently referenced when somebody is like horny, they're just like,
oh I start feeling my pussy tingle, and I'm like, okay,
all right, girl, go off. I guess yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:23:09):
My whole thing is that the whole bit again.

Speaker 1 (02:23:13):
I just had to pause and I was like, there's
no freaking way that she nuts just from you sucking
on her tit. Some people's titties are are sensitive. Some
I guess, girl, and like, good for you. I mean, yeah,
I guess good for her. She she nuts so hard
she blacks out. Actually, I mean that's a little okay, yeah,
but that's after that's after uh Rory starts really giving

(02:23:36):
it to her, and it's it's like they want each
other so bad. Like it goes from like I barely
think of you as a human to wanting wanting her.
There's no yearning, there's no yearning. There's no yearning, there's
no yearning, there's no wooing. It's just about sex. Yeah,
it's just just about something like what do you why?

Speaker 4 (02:23:56):
Because it's like it's also like an insta love kind
of thing, and like what do you guys have in
common that you would actually be in love with each other?

Speaker 1 (02:24:02):
That's my upset, that is my my dissatisfaction here is
because we go from this woman being angry at herself
for thinking Rory is attractive because she doesn't see Rory
as human to moaning and begging for her to put
your fingers in me girl like she is.

Speaker 3 (02:24:20):
She goes from that in the course of like a day.

Speaker 1 (02:24:22):
And a half. Yeah, and then they're in a relationship
after that. But there is no point where she thinks
about parts of Rory that she thinks of as like
redeeming qualities. There is no soft like emotional anything. It's
not about emotions.

Speaker 3 (02:24:41):
It's just like the only thing that's driving her is
that she thinks Rory is.

Speaker 4 (02:24:44):
Hot, and like there's only really one part, and it's
when they're at the park and they're about to go,
like they're like when after Cassidy has fully shifted and
they're about to go back home, and there's there's like
kind of an aside where Malice says like, of course
I'm going to take that off of you, like of
course I'm going to take the bomb off.

Speaker 1 (02:25:00):
Oh my god, I forgot about that. That passed me off
so bad.

Speaker 4 (02:25:03):
She's like you probably never even needed it in the
first place, and I'm like, the fuck yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:25:07):
Because there's a bit where like where Rory expresses disbelief
that Malice is actually going to let her go now
that that Cassidy is fixed quote unquote like she fully shifted.
It looks like she's gonna survive this. She's gonna be
okay yeah. And so when that's and then Malice like, okay,
time to let you go, and Rory's like, oh my god,
you're actually gonna do it. And Rory's like you, how

(02:25:28):
dare you? You thought it actually was going to blow
up your leg? And even the book it says except
for all the times that Malice threatened to do just that,
and I'm like, yeah, of course she did, U sociopath,
Yeah of course she thought you were going to bow
up her leg you strapped a bomb to it? What
the hell? And I don't legitimately, even though the whole

(02:25:50):
time Rory's like, I didn't think she was rebably gonna
do it, But she keeps having to act like Malice
might do it. Yeah, And she keeps trying to behave
in a way to endear herself to Malice as a
survival tactic. She's like, I am and she even says
like this is kind of stock hoy because she again

(02:26:10):
doesn't have a reason to like Malice's personality at all. Yeah,
she just think Malice is hot. Yep, that's it. That's
the issue. There's no yearning, there's no pining, there's no wooing,
there's no romance. They just think each other is hot
and then they have sex. It's just less and then
they have good sex, and that's it. I hate that
that's the basis for the relationship. Just want listen. I

(02:26:31):
know it's just because it's the book series that we're
going all the way through. We're talking about Avatar, but
at least Farrah and Reese have like a connection with
each other. Yeah, like I don't care if they're sleeping
together while that connection forms. Yeah, I need that connection
to form. It never does in this book. No, it's
just like, oh, yeah, they had sex and it's good,
So that's enough. That's a basis for relationship. This is

(02:26:53):
why people get divorced. This is why people get divorced.
Damn is because they find each other's and they get
married with that is the basis of relationship. And then
the second the sex stops being good, they're like, oh,
I actually have no reason to like you. Go off, queen.
That's my opinion as an asexual person who has never
been in a relationship.

Speaker 4 (02:27:13):
These are my You're necessary I mean I don't think
that's true all the time. I don't think you're necessarily
wrong though.

Speaker 1 (02:27:18):
I'm just over here as like an anthropologist of the
human condition. Yeah, being like this is this is my
third party analysis of why this relationship is flawed. They
they finish doing the do not until after the rest
of the werewolves roll up to the house. The rest
of the whirrewolves roll up to the house and also
fucking Stiletto shows up. Also, Cleta shows up. What's really

(02:27:41):
gross for me actually is the Werewells show up and
they hear the girls have the women. They hear them
having sex upstairs, and one of the wrewolves is like, haha,
sounds like Rory's letting off steam. And Cassidy knows that
it is her sister and Rory Yeah, and she I
wrote feel some kind of way about it, And I

(02:28:03):
think it's because she is feeling possessive of Rory as
the new alpha. She's like, that's mine. She does not
like Malice at this point. Yeah, And throughout this is
another thing. Throughout the story, she Malice has been upset
about losing her sister, but not really, not really. Actually,

(02:28:23):
There's been a number of times where she thinks about
the possibility of Cassidy dying and she's upset about it,
but then she realizes that she's also kind of more
upset that Rory will leave after that. Ye, and when
Cassidy is fixed, she's like, oh no, I'm gonna lose
my sister because she's gonna run off and be a
were wolf. Oh no, she's gonna run off with Rory

(02:28:44):
and I won't have Rory in my life anymore. And
like this is kind of Cassidy's deal. Now she'll have
to deal with that. She'll have to make her own
decisions and make her own way as a were wolf.
But like, Rory's gonna be gone, and that sucks. I
don't want Rory to be gone. And I'm like, what's
wrong with you? You don't like your sister? Yeah, you do
not like your sister at all. And Cassie doesn't like her.

(02:29:05):
I don't blame her. And she she comes up to
interrupt them having sex because she's like, why are you
having like stop that? Yeah, which is because she knocks
on the doors, like pounding on the door, and Malice
opens it naked, and I'm just like, this is kind
of deeply uncomfortable. Can you imagine? Can you imagine you
have a sister? I would never Yeah, if my sister

(02:29:26):
was having sex in the same house, I would put
headphones on. If I could not leave, yeah, I would
try to leave be be like I don't want to
know anything about that. I'm a younger brother, and like
I've known his girlfriends. Yeah, We've gone to like family
events where like Tyler and I have different rooms right
with our partners. Yeah, I know what's happening. Yeah, I

(02:29:49):
know my sister is married.

Speaker 3 (02:29:51):
Yeah, obviously she slept with her husband.

Speaker 1 (02:29:53):
Yeah. I am all for my sister having a healthy
sex life. I don't need to be busy.

Speaker 3 (02:29:59):
I don't need to any of that.

Speaker 4 (02:30:00):
I've had conversations with Tyler about sex, sure, sure, because
we're not prudes.

Speaker 1 (02:30:07):
But it's I don't want to hear it. I don't
I don't want to do it at all. Yeah. No,
I don't need to be involved in any of that. No, no,
thank you. Anyway. This is another thing that happens is
that like, this is a thing where people can't And
this is the thing I think the author struggles with
where people can't lose fights. Ye, because you're setting up

(02:30:29):
these people as being super strong and super powerful, but
you can't have that power diminished by somebody beating them.
So this is a problem with When Cassidy comes and
busts down the door, she is upset and grossed out,
and she is like demanding that Malice explain herself because

(02:30:50):
she has a lot of questions about what the hell's
happening to her. Yeah, and Malice says like, yeah, whatever,
I'll answer that in a bit. I have stuff that
I'm doing over here, and Rory is like, Hi, I'm stuff.
And Cassidy then like it looks like the two of
them are gonna fight, and Cassie has just been established

(02:31:10):
as Wolf Jesus. She's super strong and super powerful, and
Malice is also super strong and super powerful. She's not wolf,
but she's not Wolf Jesus. And it's one of these
things where it's like the two of them are about
to fight and they're having like a dominance fight. And
this is a thing earlier where like Rory and Malice
were kind of doing the same thing, except Rory let

(02:31:32):
her win because it's like, oh, like one of us
can't win, so I'm just gonna let you win so
that way you didn't actually beat me. Yeah, same thing
happens here where Cassidy doesn't Cassie doesn't like lose, she
just starts laughing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31:47):
And this is again the same thing happens.

Speaker 1 (02:31:49):
With Rory earlier. Rory doesn't lose their stare down, she
also just starts laughing. It's this thing where like the
fight doesn't end or doesn't conclude. One of them just decides, Oh,
I'm not fighting anymore, Yeah, which is kind of unsatisfying. Yeah,
so we're going to get into another break. But before
we get into the break, just not like I said
it before, Stiletto shows up at the house. Yeah, so

(02:32:13):
that's gonna have to be a thing to deal with. Yeah.
The government knows where you live, girl. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:32:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:32:20):
Anyway, anyway, we're going to go into a brief forg
from our sponsors.

Speaker 4 (02:32:25):
Where we left off, Stiletto has shown up to the
group chat.

Speaker 1 (02:32:31):
Soletto I entered the chat or wait, hold on, No,
the thing with Luther happens first, that's it. Yeah, I
thought about it after not her, not her in the
kitchen with Luther. Okay, Luther's appearance, we have to introduce
lu Her as a character. We do. Okay, So Cassidy
comes back to the house with all the all the
other wolves the Woven, and she is still figuring out
her like baby alpha powers yea. And the way that

(02:32:53):
she conceptualizes this is kind of like there are little
motes of light around her and they represent the other
wolves that are in her orbit essentially, like think of
them as stars in orbit, and so she is able
to sense the location of other wolves that are like
bound to her. These are her packponds, and she is

(02:33:14):
able to sort of like manipulate them a little bit,
and can't she weirdly also sense malice. She I think
she can't. No, maybe not malice. I thought she could
like somewhat still, she might be able to in a
weird I can't remember. It's it's not explicit. It's not

(02:33:35):
the same for sure. Yeah. And it's also mentioned that
like MAOIs has a sort of like vampires don't have
a smell to wear wolves. Yes, And this is the
thing that were wolves hate is because they like vampires
are like a void. They don't like exist in the malice.
They have a smell. She does, but it's very faint. Yeah,

(02:33:55):
it's like almost not there. Yeah, which is weird. It's
not human in that sense. Yeah, which again I have thoughts. Yeah.
So Cassidy is trying to figure out her baby alpha
smell sense thing pack bonds, and she grabs this one
star in her consolation with her mind hand and she
pulls it towards her and then this dude Luthor just

(02:34:17):
rolls up and he's like, you summoned me Alpha, and
she's like, Hi, who are you? And she also realizes
that she's freaking horny as hell because again, no one
has explained that she's in heat. Nope, no one has
explained to this woman that she's in heat. Not Rory
just has not a mauise. Both of them know, I'm

(02:34:37):
mad none of them have said whatever. She's harny as hell.
She and She's like, what's up? And Luther's like, I
will be your second command kind of like it seems
like he is going to be stepping up to take
the beta role. Yeah, and she kind of feels a
little bit of attraction to Luthor, who is described as
like an older wolf. Yeah. I don't know how old

(02:34:59):
he is exactly, because apparently they can be incredibly old. Yeah.
But also Cassidy is like in her twenties, So there's
some kind of it's so interesting power.

Speaker 4 (02:35:09):
To have toxic relationships. We definitely kind of handwave the
age thing.

Speaker 1 (02:35:13):
Well, it's interesting because the age gap is definitely a thing.
But she does have more literal power over him in
the sense that like she is the dominant one in
their relationship in a metaphysical way where she can like
control him to a certain extent. Yeah, so I don't

(02:35:34):
know if the age thing, like, he could possibly manipulate her,
but she has more physical power over him in this relationship.

Speaker 3 (02:35:40):
It's interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:35:41):
It's an interesting to I'm here for the exploration of it,
but also we'll talk about that later because that gets
maybe sus Anyway, So, Yesoo shows up and everyone's like
freaking out. Cassidy consents when she goes up to talk
to her sister and Rory, telling him to stop having sex.

Speaker 3 (02:35:57):
She can sense all the wolves downstairs.

Speaker 1 (02:35:59):
Are freaked out because Stiletto has suddenly entered the group
chat and everybody runs downstairs, and at first Toto's like,
so this is what you've been doing hanging out with
all these wolves? Is one of them your girlfriend? And
then Cassidy rolls up to like to attack Stiletto.

Speaker 3 (02:36:16):
She starts shifting.

Speaker 1 (02:36:17):
And still I was like, oh is this your girlfriend?
And I'm like gross, cut it out, and Luther manages
to talk Cassidy down to be like, hey, no, that
we shouldn't fight right now. We shouldn't do that. Yeah,
And MAOIs also says like, this is my sister.

Speaker 3 (02:36:37):
She's been turned into a were wolf.

Speaker 1 (02:36:39):
This is why I am been kind of a wall
recently in a way to try and get Stiletto to understand.
So Letto doesn't no, because she's very much like my
sister returned. I'd turn her in, like I get herid
of the government because Toiletto's kind of freak. And Louis

(02:37:00):
gets pissed off because they had This is the reveal
Lewis is also there, the other the former alpha of
this group. This is the reveal that Cassidy is Malice's sister.
Nobody knew that. They also didn't know that they were
gonna go to Malice's house. Yeah, and so when it's revealed, like,
oh my god, that's Malice. What do you mean she's
your sister? What's happening? And then they're like, wait, Rory,

(02:37:23):
you were sleeping with Malice, the woman who hunts and
kills wear wolves? What what is happening? What is happening?
And Lewis is pissed and Luther kind of makes him
back down because again it's like, Hi, that's the alpha.

Speaker 3 (02:37:37):
Now you can't question her.

Speaker 1 (02:37:38):
Yeah, And for.

Speaker 3 (02:37:41):
Some reason, like Rory feels really.

Speaker 1 (02:37:44):
On the outside of all these dynamics, and she is
kind of weirded out by that because despite knowing these
people for years, she's like protective of Malice. Instead, she's like,
I like her more than these people that I was
packed with and I've known for years. Yeah, she's feeling
weirdly disconnected. Yeah, but I'm also as an outsider, went,

(02:38:04):
but why do you like Mauise for? Yeah, like, what's
the good reason for you? Like, I get that your
pack bonds with these people were severed when you kind
of abandoned them. I understand her reasoning for doing it.
I don't blame Rory from running away because she thought
she was leading them away. And this is even a
thing like Luther orld have explained that at one point,

(02:38:25):
she kind of doesn't need to.

Speaker 3 (02:38:26):
There's a bit where Luther gets pissed.

Speaker 1 (02:38:27):
At Rory because he's taking on the new beta role
in the pack, which used to be Rory's role, and
he's like stepping up on Rory, being like, you abandoned us,
you ran away, and Lewis chimes in like, well, hey, listen,
if she had stayed to fight, we'd all be dead,
because when she left, a bunch of freaking mctavish's wolves
ran after her, and that let us escape, which was

(02:38:49):
Rory's hope she intentionally did that, and so she kind
of doesn't need to defend herself because Lewis understood that
was what was happening. He's still pissed, Yeah, but he
gets it. He gets it. And so it's the situation
where like, despite her making that choice to leave them
to save them, the bonds between them are still severed. Yeah,

(02:39:13):
and for whatever reason, she is pack bonding to Malice
more than these people who she's ostensibly known for decades. Yeah,
and there's I think this is the point where Wary
even starts to be like, my wolf sees her as
my mate. Yeah. And I again, why why though? Is

(02:39:35):
it because she is strong? Is it because she is
Like it's that whole thing where you're seeking like a
dominant personality that to attach yourself to. Yeah, because that's
kind of what she did with Dean, even though she
wasn't in a relationship with Dean. Yeah. But it's and
it's sort of like she seems to kind of want

(02:39:55):
that with Cassidy, but it seems like her the wolf
in her recognizes Alys is being more dominant than Cassie
is Cassidy.

Speaker 3 (02:40:03):
I mean to say, I.

Speaker 1 (02:40:06):
Don't know, man, It's it's weird.

Speaker 3 (02:40:08):
The dynamics are weird.

Speaker 1 (02:40:10):
And Cassidy goes over with Luthor and starts talking about, like, well,
how do I feed everyone? I'm in charge now? Yeah?
See this is I like that because it's like, hang on, So, like,
am I supposed to like financially support y'all? Like all
of a sudden, I have so many children? Yeah, it's
like there's nine people here. Am I supposed to? I
am in college? Yeah, I haven't finished my degree yet.

(02:40:35):
How do I support all of you? And here's the
thing they don't answer. No, Well, he what he says
is a healthy pack, the members contribute to supporting the pack.

Speaker 3 (02:40:45):
Yeah, is what Luther says.

Speaker 1 (02:40:46):
And he's like that was how it was before Dean,
which to me because it's it's said that Rory doesn't
have a job and has never had a job. Yeah,
So I'm like, so there, does that imply that, like
other members of the pack had jobs and we're bringing
money in but you didn't because you were like high
enough on the food chain that you didn't need to work. Yeah.

(02:41:07):
I don't. I don't know. I don't know how that
dynamic works. Yeah, because if it's if it's a situation
where like the alpha the pack provides attention or you know, attention,
I guess, yeah, but protection, leadership, and guidance in exchange
for the everybody else kind of like chipping in to
support him financially or her in this case with Cassidy.

Speaker 3 (02:41:30):
So I was thinking of Dean.

Speaker 1 (02:41:32):
I guess I can get that dynamic. Yeah, it seems
very cult like. And it does seem very cult like now,
doesn't it. Yeah, kind of seems a little cult like now. Huh.
I don't know, man, I got feelings about it. Yeah, anyway,
so I I soilett it was a freak. She thinks
that Cassidy should be she's gross about it, and she

(02:41:55):
thinks that Casside should be experimented all by the government.
She also thinks that all the super normal creatures should
be genocided. Yeah, Like she suxplicitly talks about like, if
we had your sister, a tame werewolf on our side,
we could develop like a nerve agent gas that just
kills them. Imagine that wouldn't that be cool and great?
And Malice is like, oh my god, your psychopath, Yeah,

(02:42:19):
which is true, And then they start fighting about it.
They do start fighting about it. And this is where
the cell phone thing comes up again, because she ends
up pick pocketing Siletto during their fight on her cell phone.
And this is again the third fight that gets broken
up by one of the people just deciding we're.

Speaker 3 (02:42:34):
Not fighting anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:42:35):
Yeah, they do not one of them doesn't beat each
other in this fight. It's the same thing where they're
fighting and then suddenly Stiletto just starts laughing. This is
the third time that's happened in this book. Yeah, happened
when Freakin' Malice was fighting Rory, happened when she was
staring down Cassidy. Now it's happening when she's fighting Stiletto.
Like they're literally throwing each other around. But then so

(02:42:55):
it just starts laughing. It decides we're not fighting anymore.
Here's the thing that upsets me about Stiletto. I get
that she I feel like there was so much more
you could have done with her character.

Speaker 4 (02:43:07):
Because also at this point they have a conversation where
Stiletto is like, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (02:43:13):
Fucking hate Ralph.

Speaker 4 (02:43:14):
Yeah, like he's a creepy old man and I'm pretty
sure he sees us as only slightly above the people
we kill. Yeah, essentially, And I'm like, there's like a
whole thing here that would have made this a lot
more interesting instead of making a Stiletto like a psychopath,
where you could have had it so like she is
pretending sort of to be a psychopath because she thinks

(02:43:34):
that Malice is, and they start to realize like, oh,
we all fucking hate this.

Speaker 1 (02:43:41):
Yeah, like we should do something about it. You could
more deeply explore the ways that these people cope with
the obvious trauma that.

Speaker 3 (02:43:50):
They have gone through.

Speaker 1 (02:43:51):
Yeah, and you could more deeply explore the concepts of
like the propaganda the government fed them to make them
hate the creatures that they are killing, and maybe that
is explored in the later parts of the series. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like there's any work done by Malice
to deconstruct that. But here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (02:44:12):
It would have made more sense. And this is now
impossible because spoiler alert still.

Speaker 1 (02:44:20):
Let it dies. Yeah, it would have made more sense,
Like we have Rory and Malice is the main love
interest in this book. It would have made more sense
if in the next books they then explore like, actually,
Rory and Cassidy have more in common. Yeah, and then
Stiletto and Malice have more in common, could have been like,
I feel like that dynamic would have been a lot

(02:44:42):
more interesting. Yeah, probably because you would have they because
the thing is they do have more in common. Yeah,
Malice and Rory don't have anything in common. No, the
things that, like, you could have explored Rory's dynamic of
trying to help Cassidy struggle through newness, of being aware
wolf seeing herself in Cassidy, which she does say at

(02:45:04):
one point, she's like, you remind me of me when
I was first turning. Yeah, and maybe that's a sisterly
bond in this book, but you could have that become
a romantic one. But also the dynamics of Cassidy explicitly
being the more dominant one in their relationship because of
she's werewolf.

Speaker 3 (02:45:21):
Jesus, I guess I.

Speaker 4 (02:45:22):
Just think, Yeah, I just and to listen because we
had this whole conversation in the Patreon but where we're
like upset at how they're dynamics between Malice and Rory
just don't make sense and it's very lust It's just
it's only.

Speaker 1 (02:45:35):
There's only sexual intimacy, there's no emotional intimacy between and
it just would have been more interesting to then in
the next books be like, well, actually, these characters that
aren't romantically linked in the first book, but there are
breadcrumbs in it to lead you to, like, bitch, change
them being together and the other like that makes more
sense and that's more interesting. I can understand from a

(02:45:55):
meta perspective white an author might not want to do
that because and like Sarah Ja Moss did it, and
I think did that very well. I will give her
her kudos for that more relationship dynamics like that. But
I can understand from metaperspective why an author might be
hesitant to do that, because you piss off a lot
of your fan mase. If people read a book for
a ship and then in the second book that ship

(02:46:19):
is gone and there's a different ship, you might lose
people who were reading your work for that relationship church
only now in this instance the relationship sucks. Yeah, but
there might be people who are really only kind of
focused on the horny part of it, and maybe that's
the only reason make it horny. Maybe that's the only
reason why they're reading these books. Yeah, And in an

(02:46:41):
interesting way, we had that in the in reading Nightmare
for Christmas and go luck yourself. Yeah, because in the
first book, where we're really not seeing from Chris and
Iris's perspective their relationship, all we knew was that Chris
was pining for Iris really hard. I wanted them to
end up together, and I was upset at the end
when it seemed like that wasn't gonna happen, right, And

(02:47:03):
I think that the author did a good job of
kind of explaining why that didn't happen and giving Chris
a new love interest. But it did, I will admit,
make me kind of hesitant to, like, am I gonna
like this second book? Yeah, because it seems like this
thing that I wanted to happen isn't gonna happen. Yeah,
And I don't know if that's gonna be done in

(02:47:24):
a satisfying way. Yeah, I can understand why authors would
be hesitant to do that. Stop being cowards, Stop being
you know what, Chelsea, You're right, You're right. Yeah. But anyway, anyway, So, yes,
they fight, and suddenly Malice just or so out justicides.
I guess we're not fighting anymore.

Speaker 4 (02:47:41):
Malice deals her cell phone call someone one of her
friends that, like, I guess he works at CIA. His
brother had a run in with vampires, and Malice helped,
and so now he owes her. So he like makes
it so that the calls to this number get redirected
somewhere and they're not gonna specifically the calls.

Speaker 1 (02:48:00):
From Uncle Ralph. Yeah, if Uncle Ralph tries to call Stiletto,
it will go to a dummy voicemail box and Stiletto
will not get the messages.

Speaker 4 (02:48:08):
Until she decides, until it's like, after this is all done,
they can then be rerouted back exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:48:14):
At some point also in the scuffle, and it's not
it's not clear if this was done intentionally or not,
but Stiletto's laptop got a bunch of water dumped on
it in the fight, Like it was a cup of
water had been tipped over onto the keyboard while they
were fighting. Yeah, it's not clear if Malice did that
intentionally or not at that point because later when she's

(02:48:34):
like putting her laptop in rice, which I don't think
that works for laptops, It worked for cell phones. If
it's she deconstructed the laptop and she put the individual
components in rice, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:48:44):
But later Malice like takes another bottle and pours it
over the ones that are in the rice.

Speaker 3 (02:48:49):
So that's intention that part is super intentional obviously.

Speaker 1 (02:48:51):
Yeah, but Stiletto was just basically kind of like the
status quo that we've established is that Stiletto is.

Speaker 3 (02:48:59):
Not going to interfere.

Speaker 1 (02:49:01):
With what Malie is doing with the werewolves, but that
her report, her mission report, is going to look a
lot different. She is she's not going to hide Cassidy's
situation from the government. She's going to tell the government
about Cassidy. She's just not going to stop Malice from
whatever she's doing with the were wolves. Yeah, and so
I was like, okay, cool, so still that I was

(02:49:22):
going to die. Yeah, I at that point I was like, cool, soocio,
I was going to die before the mission ends. Yeah,
that's the only way that you get around this. But yes,
so MAOIs manages to like do this thing to basically
make sure that the government doesn't find out there doesn't
communicate with stillttle more. Yeah, and she is the one
who communicates with Uncle Ralph. She tells him the update

(02:49:45):
that like, Okay, we like we went and we checked
out where the pack. The packs move, We're going to
find out where they are now we need to go
and get information about their current location. We're working on
it by and Stiletto is like, I mentioned, I understand
you did talk about your sister. Yeah, because Malice is

(02:50:06):
trying to control the narrative, they go see what's her
name again, the Carla, Carla. They go see Carla. There
is a bit where Rory comes back to the house
where Soletto and Malice is.

Speaker 3 (02:50:18):
She breaks into the house and they think.

Speaker 1 (02:50:20):
That it's like an intruder, but it's just Rory because
she's worried that the front door is bond yeah, which
I guess is the Chekhov's gun of that coming back.
I don't know. And Stiletto tries to like stab her
to death and Malice takes the hit instead, and that's
when Rory's.

Speaker 3 (02:50:36):
Like, oh my god, I love her.

Speaker 1 (02:50:38):
And then I just wrote a little vomit emoji in
my notes, I wrote. Stotto tells Malice that this is
stupid and that monsters can't.

Speaker 3 (02:50:46):
Love, and Rory internally realizes.

Speaker 1 (02:50:49):
She is in love with Malice mom and emoji. And
then at some point her wolf picked her as mate.
Her her wolf has decided that that's your mate. Now,
this crazy lady, this crazy lady, yeah, yes, your mate now.
And Rory is like, okay, hi, guys, you don't need
to kill all the wolves.

Speaker 3 (02:51:08):
I know your plan was to go and find the
were wolves and kill them all. You don't need to
do that.

Speaker 1 (02:51:11):
You just need to kill the wolves that are in charge.

Speaker 4 (02:51:15):
You need to kill the wolves that are in charge.
And also all of the ones that turned Cassidy.

Speaker 1 (02:51:20):
Yes, because revenge. Yeah, because we all wanted to kill
those guys. Yea. And Stiletto's like, we should kill all
the wolves and Malice is like, I'm willing to listen
to you because I now recognize that you're a person. Yeah,
and man, that bar is so low. So they Malice

(02:51:41):
decides that, like, yeah, we got to go talk to
Carla again. And Stiletto and Rory are both like, we
don't want to do that. We don't like vampires, and
she's like the tough We're gonna go talk to Carla
and find out where they are.

Speaker 4 (02:51:53):
There's this whole conversation that Malice has with Stiletto of
is like don't you talk, like, don't you talk to
people in the in the supernow community to get information?
And She's like, well, yeah, but I know that eventually,
I'll kill them, right, And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:52:06):
She because the win, Stiletto use it. She because to
give Malice a crumb of credit. She part of her
beef with Stiletto is that Malice understands that there are
some super normal creatures that are dangerous, but there are
some that are kind of just fine and you just
kind of exist.

Speaker 3 (02:52:24):
They're just kind of hanging out and you can.

Speaker 1 (02:52:26):
Leave them alone.

Speaker 3 (02:52:26):
It was the whole thing with the original North Side Pack.

Speaker 1 (02:52:29):
She didn't care about what they got up to because
they were not threatening people. Malice thinks that it is
only a matter of time. Sorry, Stiletto, You're right. Stiletto
thinks that it's only a matter of time before any supernatural.

Speaker 3 (02:52:41):
Creature turns on humans.

Speaker 1 (02:52:43):
So she's like, if you give them time, they'll all
need to be murdered. I'll have to kill them all eventually, yeah,
And Malice is like, okay, but no, like some of
them don't turn on people, and so I was like, yeah,
they do, I'm gonna kill them all. Yeah. So it's weird,
and they go to the They go to the club again.
There's this whole bit where the dude at the door

(02:53:04):
doesn't recognize whom Malice is and she gets to flex
on him. Yeah, and then an evil accountant. It's he's
described as an evil accountant. He looks like an evil accountant.
Apparently takes her inside to see Carla, and carl was like,
why did you wake me up in the middle of
the day. I wish that people could see the hand
gestures I make when I do.

Speaker 4 (02:53:22):
I wish we could like make you, like put like
an audio snippet of her voice.

Speaker 1 (02:53:28):
Yeah, because it's so I fucking hated it. And so
they go to see Carla and Rury is like, is
there like a thing here between you and this woman?
And she can also smell that stiletto is so turned
on right now when Carla rolls up, Yeah, because so
Itto really likes vampires. I guess it's not like explicitly

(02:53:50):
said yeah, but it is happen. It does happen. Yeah,
And so Letto is the one that then volunteers for
the Forgetting God. Because what happens is Carla picks up
that Rory thinks of Malice as her mate. She's like, Oh,
I don't know if this is because their mind reading
or whatever. It kind of is implied that I was

(02:54:10):
also implied earlier. Sorry, I forgot this. It's implied a
couple of times that vampires can read minds. Yes. Earlier
in the story, there was a bit when they were
in the park where I think where Rory is thinking
about Lewis or she's getting sad over her pack, she's
thinking about Brittany and she's thinking about Lewis, and Cassidy

(02:54:32):
asks her, who's Lewis? And Rory's like, oh, I guess
I must have said that out loud. Yeah, And I'm like,
I don't think you did. I think that Cassidy can
read your mind. Yep. And I'm just putting that, putting
a pin in that, putting a pin in that. I
think Cassidy can read minds. I'm going to get into
that almost immediately because Carloo can tell that. Rory is like, oh,
you think of Malice as your mate, So I'm gonna

(02:54:55):
I want to drink her blood. I don't drink Rory's
blood to get this information. And Mouse is like, no,
you're not, No, You're not going to do that. You
can drink my blood. And She's like, I kind of
want to drink Rory's blood. Because worlds are apparently delicious
to vampires. It's been said that worlds are delicious vampires,
and Malice is getting really aggressive about it, and Carla

(02:55:19):
says like, again, McTavish is too strong. You got a
sweetened the pot for me to go against him, And
then Stiletto chimes in and says, well, if McTavish is
so strong that he's a threat to you, then you
have a vested interest in getting rid of him, So like,
you shouldn't be playing hardball about this. You should be
helping us get rid of him, because then he's not

(02:55:40):
a threat to you anymore. And Carl was like, that
does make sense. Actually, all right, fine, but I want
to drink your blood and I want to drink it
from the source, and Mouse like you don't need to
do that, and so I was like, shut up, yes,
I do. Shut up. Let me, don't don't do any
mind tricks on me. As she's ripping her shirt off, yeah, literally,

(02:56:02):
and Carla feeds from Stiletto for a really long time.
Stiletto seems like, again, like Rory, is this from Rory's
point of view, So Rory's making a note that like
Stiletto was crazy turned on all this is happening. Yeah,
But eventually the scent of arousal fades because I think
she's getting woozy because Carla, because Carla keeps drinking all
her blood and at a certain point, because Malice doesn't

(02:56:24):
seem to care, and Rory at a certain point looks
at her like, uh, hey, should you be worried about that?
And then Malice like, oh crap, yeah, hey, Carla cut
that out. Stop that. And one of the guards Carla
was like, dudes, says, goes up to Malice and tells
her that a half rate damn fear can't tell the

(02:56:48):
Lord of Chicago what to do, and Malice is like,
what the hell is a damn fear? What do you
call me? And Rory is also like what the hell's
a damn fear? What'd you call her?

Speaker 3 (02:56:58):
And me reading this book is like, I know what
that is.

Speaker 1 (02:57:01):
Yeah, I know what that word means. And it is
implying that the vampires see MAOIs as part vampire. Yeah,
because a damn fear is a hybrid human vampire. Yeah,
usually half vampire, but not necessarily she's a third because
she's also a third were wolf.

Speaker 3 (02:57:21):
Yeah, so either here's my thing.

Speaker 1 (02:57:24):
Here's my thing. Is I am wondering is the juice
did the juice maker part were wolf or hypothetically what
she or her vampire me to say was malice always
part vampire. Because we don't know much about Jimmy Jimmy
Nolan their father. Oh okay, we don't know much about

(02:57:46):
this man who mysteriously died in a car crashes. We
do know that their mom, despite her age, is like
uncannily pretty and perfect. Okay. Also, despite being a vegetarian,
every time she sees like raw me, she gets hungry.
She gets so freaking hungry for it. And I'm wondering.
And also again, Cassidy becomes a were wolf, but then

(02:58:08):
starts doing really weird things where wolf should be able
to do and has Jesus powers. Yeah, and despite the
fact that only one of the wolves inside of her
is supposed to have won the dominance battle, she has
two glowing eyes, one of which is red. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:58:24):
I don't remember, and maybe this is just me not remembering.

Speaker 1 (02:58:26):
I don't remember a different wolf that bit her being
described as having red eyes. I don't remember either.

Speaker 3 (02:58:31):
We know that brit had blue.

Speaker 1 (02:58:33):
There's green, there's gold, there's red. But I'm kind of
over here, like what if Cassidy is some kind of
like werewolf vampire hybrid and what if Malice is two?

Speaker 3 (02:58:46):
But the super Soldier serum she was given just kind
of advanced.

Speaker 1 (02:58:51):
It enhanced what was already there, and that would give
the military a reason to pick her, But it still
doesn't give her a reason to agree. No, maybe they
gave her a lot of money, Yeah, but it's not
said what explicitly about Malice intrigued her into this program.
Not only that, but it's like it's implied that a
lot of them die, whereas Malice didn't. Yeah, she survived, Yeah,

(02:59:16):
and it's kind of it kind of makes me wonder
if perhaps one of her parents is at least part vampire. Yeah,
and if so, she is possibly a part vampire. Her
sister is part vampire, which is why she has freaking
werewolf Jesus powers and why she is able to maybe
read the minds of those she's pack bonded to, which

(02:59:39):
is a thing that it's said that other were wolves
can't do. Right. Yeah, and there's other stuff that happens
later in the book that other were wolves cannot do,
And everyone remarks that's weird. Yeah that I'm like, yeah,
I think it's because she's part vampire. I think she's
she is like the I think that they're weird hybrid creatures. Yeah,
that's my theory. That's my game theory. All right, I'm

(02:59:59):
down with that theory. That's that's what I present to
you today as sharks, And that's why the vampires recognize
Malice as a damn fear as one of their own. Okay.
It's also implied that the vampires might be out of
sync with reality a little bit. Okay, there was a

(03:00:20):
bit that was in I think Rory mentions that because
she can see them moving and they're in a weird
blur where it feels like they're not fully present here,
and she's like, oh, maybe that's why they don't have
a smell is because they're not actually like in this
reality fully. But we never get that perspective from Malice.

(03:00:42):
From Malice.

Speaker 3 (03:00:42):
Yeah, but no, but Malice doesn't know anything about anything.

Speaker 1 (03:00:45):
It's been proven that's it's been proven that she knows
ditty squad about anything that she's hunting. Fair enough. Yeah,
so they ever come into my ted talk anyway. They
managed to get Carlo to stop sucking on Stowetto's tits,
and Soto kind of just like stumbles away and Carl
is like, you may clean me my guards and they

(03:01:07):
lick all of the blood off of her, and she
nuts because again, all it takes is for you to
lick somebody's boobs and they net real hard. That's that's
not common. I will give it, that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (03:01:18):
I'll give it to uh Malice and Rory, but not
so consistently.

Speaker 1 (03:01:25):
It's it seems like it's a thing. Maybe maybe it's
a supernatural thing. Maybe your senses, maybe your senses are
so heightened that those nips just are so sense. One
of those things where it's like, and this isn't really
common in like more contemporary romances, like written contemporarily, but
a lot of romance novels that were like back, like
farther back, it's eighteen years and earlier, these women be

(03:01:51):
orgasming with penetration alone. I'm like, listen, I know some
women can do that, but I don't think that's normal.
I think that there's it's selling the fan to see
of sex over the reality of it. Yeah, because you
don't want to have to be a so deal with
the reality of sex, which is sometimes like not perfect
or messy or clean.

Speaker 4 (03:02:11):
I do appreciate that, and the ones that are written
more contemporarily, it's like, oh no, we haven't we even pussy,
we fingering, we.

Speaker 1 (03:02:20):
Don't we getting in there. We're getting in there.

Speaker 4 (03:02:22):
And I'm like, I appreciate that because that feels like
it's still a fantasy for sure. Yeah, yeah, but it
does feel slightly more realistic and it's slightly more satisfying.

Speaker 1 (03:02:31):
I'm just over here. If the explanation meta explanations were
coming to here is that all of these women are
nutting just from their tits because again, they're maybe super sensitive.
Maybe this is a super sensitive, super normal thing. Maybe
do you think bras sure chafer bad. We're gonna have
the Illyrian Wing conversation that I was like, this is

(03:02:52):
chafing a big problem? Do you think, like I don't
think so, as someone who like I think Chelsea Chelsea
and just grabbing her boobs, getting a scent, calibrating like,
my my boobs are sensitive a bit.

Speaker 4 (03:03:11):
I don't feel like I get chafed from like anything.

Speaker 1 (03:03:16):
Yeah, I mean, also, I feel like usually that happens
when you're like running an athletic and stuff more often.
But it didn't wasn't a problem me in like rugby.
That's good, okay. I hear it more as a complaint
from people who are in a lot of sports. Yeah,
that that chafing is an issue. Yeah, I don't know, man,
I don't know nothing about that. That's it. Anyway. There's

(03:03:38):
some threatening with Carla back and forth, but ultimately she's like, okay,
we'll we maybe help you. Maybe we'll help you out.
We know where the pack is and we'll tell you
and then maybe we'll help you take them out. We'll
let you know. And they're like when will you let
us know? And she's like soon and they're like we'll
when is soon? And she's like, fine, I'll tell you tomorrow.

(03:03:58):
I'll call you tomorrow, okay, just like christ call me,
beat me if you want to reach me. So while
all of that is happening, while they're going to have
weird psycho sexual negotiations with Karla, Cassidy is back in
the safe house having a nap and she wakes up
and she finds that all the rest of the pack
is like cuddled in around her, which is kind of cute.

(03:04:18):
But also she's really hot and she's really horny, and
she doesn't understand why yeah, because no one is explained
to her that she is in heat. No one has
said that to her at any point in this story.
So she goes down and finds Luther in the kitchen
and she's like, God, he's so hot, and she's like, okay,

(03:04:39):
what do I do now? They talk about providing for
the pack more and then suddenly she licks his neck
and he's like alpha weight, yeah, and she bites his
neck and then he's like, you don't know what you're doing.
Maybe you should not. And then she just pushes him

(03:05:00):
against a wall and is like shut up, and he's like, okay,
I guess, and then she rides the high out of him.
It's fade to black. Yeah. Uh. It says that like,
I don't care about the heads. We don't care about
the heads, and I understand that I'm not worried about that,
but it's for me. I'm like, Luther does not verbally consent. No.

(03:05:21):
She pushes him against the wall and is kind of
like rubbing all over him and expressing that she wants
to sleep with him, and he just kind of like
at one point. It says that he submits, he like
turns his head, he bears his neck in submission, and
his nonverbal submission turns Cassidy's on so bad that she
just like throws him to the floor and again rides

(03:05:42):
the head out of this man, I think, and I'm
over here like, Okay, I don't think that he's unwilling. Yeah,
but I do think that this is a power dynamic
issue because she is the new alpha of the pack. Yeah,
and he doesn't seem to ever express interest in her
before she starts biting his neck. Yeah, And at first

(03:06:07):
he's like, hey, twenty somethingter girl who doesn't seem like
she knows what's going on.

Speaker 3 (03:06:13):
Yeah, maybe you shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (03:06:16):
And then she's like, I'm doing it anyway, and he's like, okay,
I guess. Yeah. So she is not in her right mind.
She is in heat, she's not, and he is not
giving a clear answer, he is not giving clear consent,
and she is kind of I'm not gonna say intoxicated,
but she is not like sober. Yeah, she's she is

(03:06:38):
influenced by fantasy hormones. And I'm over here like, Okay,
I don't think this is a traumatic experience for either
of them. I don't think that it's really that much
of a problem because after the fact they both seem
okay with what happened. But this is a little dubious
right hearing it. And then there's a conversation about birth control. Yeah,

(03:06:59):
after the fact, the fact, after the fact, because again,
Cassidy is not lucid, she is not aware and in
control of her facilities. She becomes lucid after the fact
when they're both just lying on the ground naked in
the kitchen and she's like, wait, we just had sex
and he's like yeah. And she's like, am I gonna

(03:07:20):
get pregnant? And he's like probably not, probably not, but
he seems so unconcerned. She's like he's like, yeah it is.

Speaker 4 (03:07:27):
This is this is someone finally being like, well, that
was your like first heat, so probably not.

Speaker 1 (03:07:31):
And she was like what. Yeah. He has to explain
the concept of heat to her, and then he explains
to like, oh, yeah, alphas are generally speaking like infertile,
like where elves are not the most fertile bunch to
begin with. And in my brain I'm like, it's probably
going to heat so often because biology is just really trying,
you know, Yeah, it's like one of these is gonna work.

Speaker 4 (03:07:49):
And he's like, well, She's like, how do I how
do I prevent a ends pregnancy? And he's like, I
mean the normal ways, which I'm thinking, like condom because
then he's like, the pill won't work because.

Speaker 1 (03:07:57):
Your time wislm's too high. Pill's not gonna work. But
you could like forget these condoms or whatever. Yeah, and
he's like, or you could sleep with a woman.

Speaker 3 (03:08:03):
Like he's just so unbothered.

Speaker 1 (03:08:04):
Yeah, And to me, I'm like, Okay, I feel like
he's at least I am. I would have loved to
know that it advanced that he was kind of blause
about all of this, because after the fact, Luther seems
really unbothered.

Speaker 3 (03:08:16):
He's just like it was kind of just transactional sex.

Speaker 1 (03:08:18):
I don't really care. Yeah, but in the moment where
she's coming on to him, it doesn't seem like that necessarily. Again,
this is a small nippick because it ends up being
fine and neither of them is traumatized by the situation.
And it's not super sus the way that this plays out.
Because we know that Cassidy is interested in men, she

(03:08:39):
kind of instigates this. She doesn't feel forced, but she
does feel weird that like she was so out of it,
out of it, yeah, and she has been feeling like
she just wants to kind of jump anybody recently, and
it does harken back to when Rory was attacked earlier
in the book, as you were saying, yeah, but at
least Luther's chill. At least Luther's chill. At least Luther's chill.

(03:09:01):
So yeah. While they're lying there on the floor, some
other werewolves come into the kitchen and don't seem to
carry ge us up, and Luther starts complaining about Luther
is one of the ones who walks in. He starts
complaining about they're not being fluid. Lewis, You're right, sorry, Lewis,
there's too many eails. Lewis warts complaining they're not being food.
Luther's like, shut up and show respect, your alpha. And

(03:09:24):
then again Lewis comes to Rory's defense when they're talking
about Rory as her membership of the pack, because Rory
enters the house to be like, hey, guess what we know.
McTavish is now we're gonna go kill We're gonna go
kill that guy, and Luther is like, I don't like,
you're not part of the pack. Why are you? And

(03:09:46):
Lewis is like, no, she's chill. And apparently Mouse and
Skippy died, we find out, which is upsetting to me. Yeah,
Mouse and Skippy, those wolves that were mentioned once and
then never again. They're dead. That's said. But also Cassidy
lays on the wall basically saying like, Malice is my sister.
I like Rory, she's part of this pack. You either
accept all of these things, both of you, or you'll

(03:10:09):
deal with me. And everyone's just like, okay, Alphas, put
down the law. We accept this. We understand your law.
And Lewis is like, I also want to kill mctabash too,
So I'm super on board with this plan to go
kill mctabash. Yeah, And they ask around and they get
there's another dude whose name is Harold, I think, yeah,
and he is also Harry not Harry Yeah, because that's

(03:10:32):
too close to Furry and that's a microaggression, Harold. And
so they are going to, uh, they're going to be
part of team kill mctabash, along with Cassidy, Rory and
Malice and Lewis and stiletto and seto. Yes, Toto is
going to be part of it. Two. Uh. They end
up talking. There's like a whole thing about this. They
tell Uncle Ralph the plan essentially, and he's super on

(03:10:57):
board for them going and killing mctabash. He doesn't ask
a lot of question. And again it's that whole thing
where she's like, Slido is like our reports. It's gonna
be very different to the government. Yeah, and I guess
she's gonna die. So anyway, and Malice is planning, she's
gearing up to go out, and she starts thinking about

(03:11:19):
how Carla mentioned that she and Rory were mates, and
she's like, what's up with that? Yeah, what's up with that?
Is she gonna talk to Rory about this? No, no, no,
she will not. She's gonna make a sculpture about it.
The sculpture ends up being like nice as opposed to
all of the ones that are like expressions of her
inner darkness. This one's not nice. This one's like pretty

(03:11:44):
and swoopy and whatever doesn't matter, I guess. Carla calls
the next day, Fast forward, Carla calls and she's like,
all right, we set up this drop. I'm not gonna
do the voice. I will spare Chelsea, thank you. We
set up a situation where Carla has asked McTavish to
steal something from a bank from her bank robbery. He's
gonna steal something from a safety deposit box and what

(03:12:07):
the thing is doesn't actually matter because it's a setup
to get him to this place where they can ambush him.

Speaker 3 (03:12:13):
Yeah, and everyone's like, sick, that's perfect.

Speaker 1 (03:12:16):
He'll go into this bank and then we'll go in
after him and we'll kill that dude. And carl was like, great, excellent,
see you on the other side. I guess yeah. So
Malice and Stiletto go to stake out the bank, and
the plan is kind of that, like they're gonna kick

(03:12:37):
it off first, and then the were wolves are gonna
come in and attack in like a pincer formation. So
there's McTavish and whoever he brings to the bank robbery.
Then the were wolves are going to go to the
New Den and they're going to attack whoever's protecting the Dene,
and if any of the more like lower on the
Wrung where wolves decide to leave, they're gonna let them leave.

(03:12:58):
If anyone to join the new pack. They'll get to
join the new pack, but the ones who are like
loyal to McTavish are gonna die. Yeah, that's the plan.
Rory is also feeling a kind of way about the
pack again because she's like the rest of the pack
don't like me anymore. Yeah, she's feeling kind of like
an outsider.

Speaker 3 (03:13:15):
She's very much feeling like an outsider.

Speaker 1 (03:13:17):
Yeah, where there was a bit oh yeah. Cassidy also
is talking to Rory about it because she's upset with Malice,
still understandably, and is she's saying she's it's she is
mad at Malice because Malice has been lying to her
for years and then never explained or apologize after the fact. Ye,
Malice is stupid and doesn't seem to get that. She

(03:13:38):
doesn't get why Cassidy is mad at her, Yeah, because
she's like, well, look what happened when you did enter
this world? Yeah, but she also is confused as to
why Cassie doesn't just do whatever she says anymore. And
I guess because she doesn't freaking trust you. Yeah, what's
wrong with you? This? She's an idiot? Is what's happening
here anyway? Anyway? So the bank heist begins with the

(03:14:00):
werewolve's driving a semi truck into the side of the bank. Yeah,
this is not subtle. And at no point in what
follows does anyone call the cops. Any anybody in this area. Uh,
there's no bystanders or witnesses or humans who realize who
hear the truck hit this this bank, and the cops

(03:14:22):
are never called. No one ever interferes. I'm so okay,
just I guess sure, sure, So Malice and Stiletto watch
this happen, and they see another truck roll up, and
McTavish and a bunch of other wolves get out, and
there's like this kid who is maybe like fifteen, who
was in the front truck. Yeah, and he gets out

(03:14:43):
and he's all covered in blood and he's all messed up,
but he's a werewolf, so he's like shifting back to normal.
He's he's healing. And McTavish is like, good job, kid,
You go and hang out in the trailer and heal up.
The rest of me and my wolf bros. We're gonna
the truck is still in the hall, so we're gonna
pull it over, right, So we're gonna go in.

Speaker 4 (03:15:01):
So this is At this point, I'm like, oh, McTavish
gained power because he just kept making more werewolves.

Speaker 1 (03:15:08):
Yeah, he thinks of them as disposable. I think, yeah,
he kept biting more people because this is it's kind
of seemed like he made this kid and it's just recently.

Speaker 3 (03:15:19):
This is like a fresh puppy werewolf.

Speaker 1 (03:15:21):
Yeah, and Malice even makes a point of thinking like
this is he's a child. He's really young. He's younger
than any were wolf I've seen. But she doesn't kill him.
She knocks him out, she doesn't kill him. Stuetto This
is stupid, I think, because Stueto was like, I'll go
in first and I'll start attacking them, and you you
go take care of that guy who's in the truck,
the child, Yeah, and then you come meet me. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:15:43):
And I'm like, that's kind of dumb, But okay.

Speaker 1 (03:15:46):
Maloless goes to do that. She does not kill this kid.
She's wearing a conscience. That's nice, that's a person. She
realizes this is a child. Yep, that's a person. So
she just knocks him out and ties him up, and
then she goes and she's another were wolf and kills
that one and then she and sot to get into
this big fight in the bank, and while that's happening,
all the other wolves with a katana with a katana,

(03:16:09):
and Soueto has also a weird weapon. What was it?
I can't remember. She just got knives, so it has
like electroty guns. Why does no one have guys like
you know? This several bullet thing isn't real, but I
still feel like gun I will say. They do explain
that the best way for werewolf killing, specifically because they

(03:16:29):
heal so quickly, is to behead them, is to be
had them or to sever the spinal column, because that's
something that can't be healed, right, So you can either
like break their spines or you can behead them. And
I do agree that a knife or a blade is
better at that, but you can still incapacitate one with
a gun first. Sure, sure, sure, as I'll come.

Speaker 4 (03:16:48):
You can also if you are a good shot, sever
the spider column with a bullet.

Speaker 1 (03:16:52):
Yeah. So, And also this is a thing. This is
a thing in a lot of media. The katana is
idize because it's very cool and it is also very
good at cutting. It's very good slicing katanas. Are also
notoriously fragile. Yeah, and you know it's not fragile a
big gass clay war and you know what, big ass

(03:17:16):
claimers are also good at breaking bones. You don't need
to be head somebody with a big gass claim more
if you can just slap them on the back so
heart breaks their spine. And also that is much more
sturdy of a weapon than a katana is. So why
not have a big gas sword, like a big gass
European sword, because those are specifically designed.

Speaker 3 (03:17:38):
I went to sword fighting classes. I had this explained
to me because those are designed to.

Speaker 1 (03:17:44):
Hit people with armor, whereas a katana is designed to
cut people wearing hide or paper or like natural fibers.
It's because it was developed in a time period in
Japan where they didn't have access to a lot of
metal to make armor out of, so they didn't make
metal armor as thick as the European armor was. Katana's

(03:18:06):
are great slicing, kind of useless against metal. Yeah, if
you're fighting an armored creature like a being that is superhealing,
probably not big sword. But I guess if you're going
execution or some I want to have an axe. Yeah,
I feel like an axe which also has a longer
reach A battle axe. Yeah, how would actually be better

(03:18:27):
in this situation? Would or or a freaking up pole arm.
I'm here, I'm we're nitpicking.

Speaker 3 (03:18:34):
Yeah, I'm nitpicking.

Speaker 1 (03:18:35):
But aesthetics. But aesthetics though, And you know what again,
if I accept that it's camp, yeah it's camp.

Speaker 3 (03:18:41):
That's fine.

Speaker 1 (03:18:42):
The rest of the the rest of the crew, the
wolf crew, go to fight the wolves in the house,
and it immediately goes incredibly bloody. Yeah, there's so many
wolves who are fighting against them, and they're they're wolf fights.
They're facing off each other, they're biting each other. Cassidy
just straight up this is her first like wolf fight actually,

(03:19:02):
and she just straights up kills some people. Yeah, she
is in this so fast. Rory gets put up against Britney.

Speaker 4 (03:19:09):
We don't see that fight, No, we see them confront
each other and then it hard cuts to Britney's dead.

Speaker 1 (03:19:16):
Because it's explained that there is like this thing where
you fully give in to the wolf, which I assume
means you just go super feral. You just there's no
higher thought process. You're just like you're just going for it,
and that is what happens where where Rory is like,

(03:19:36):
she's so distraught overseeing Brittany that she just gives into
the wolf brain and then when she comes back to herself,
Brittany is like e viscerating on the ground. She is
she's so freaking she's super dead. She's so dead. Bro
bro bro, She's super dead. Unfortunately, in this tussle, Lewis dies.

(03:19:57):
Lewis does get God, he gets eaten alive, and this
is that's another thing again, much like how Dean got
eaten alive. It's established that if the were wolves eat
each other like their metabolism weird metabolism magic that keeps
coming up in these books, or at least in this one,
where if they eat flesh or blood of what they are, like,
if they consume things, it helps them heal faster. Videod

(03:20:21):
logic that you literally video game logic. So in this fight,
the bad wolves mctavish's wolves are eating the wolves they
kill as they go. Yeah, and that is healing them faster.
And because the new pack Cassidy's Pack has I guess
moral compunctions against cannibalism, they are not doing that and

(03:20:41):
it's putting them at a disadvantage because they refuse to
eat their enemy. Yeah, and so that I'm like, that's interesting.
That's that's a very interesting dynamic. Yeah. I'm kind of
as a again, as part of like the body horror
part of it all, kind of like that as a dynamic. Sure,
But i also feel like at this point it's either
eat or die. Yeah, so iee, because they're still like

(03:21:03):
having a moral conundrum about it.

Speaker 4 (03:21:05):
I'm like, listen, you don't have another option and you're
about to fucking be furthered.

Speaker 1 (03:21:10):
Yeah maybe a guy. Yeah, and maybe you gotta have
therapy about it afterwards. But you know, well, therapy doesn't exist.
Magical therapy just does not exist. None of these werewolves
go to therapy. But also there's a bit which happens
where they see Lewis die and Cassidy is so upset
over Lewis's death, but she's also really weirded out because

(03:21:33):
she like she senses his little star and her consolation
goes out. Yeah, but she also notices that there are
other stars in her constellation that have gone out that
are representative of the enemy, specifically the people who made her.

Speaker 3 (03:21:46):
Yes, like she sensed it.

Speaker 1 (03:21:47):
When Brittany died, and she's like, why why can I
do that? Why can't I sense when Britney's she's not
part of my pack. I have a connection to her
because she's one of my sires, I guess, but she's
not part of my pack. Why can't I sense that
when she dies? And so she starts in her mind's
eye reaching out to all these stars and she can
tell that there are other ones that are not part

(03:22:10):
of her orbit, but they are there, and she's like,
I feel like I can just reach them if I
try really hard. And she basically turns to her wolf
brain and is like, hey, can you like front seat
for a little while while I do this? And the
Wolf's like yeah, dude, for sure, Yeah, and just starts
going feral and killing people, and Cassie's like beans, And

(03:22:30):
she starts focusing on the psychic warfare, where she reaches
out to other the souls basically of other wolves who
are not part of her pack, and after a great
psychic struggle, she grabs them and drags.

Speaker 3 (03:22:45):
Them into her orbit.

Speaker 1 (03:22:46):
She essentially force alpha bonds herself to these wolves. Yeah,
which is horrifying in its implications. Yeah, because what happens
is some of the wolves who were on mctavish's side
suddenly switch over and start fighting for Cassidy, and I'm like, okay, interesting.

(03:23:10):
This says a lot about the free will of the
were wolf species, because apparently you can just be force
alpha bond into people and it changes your moral allegiances.
It also like it is implied that it can kind
of fuck you up. Yeah, but yeah, so when she
does this, she comes back to herself, sees that she's

(03:23:31):
killed a dude basically, and then she's like, okay, cool.
And then Rory is fighting a dude. But then suddenly
the guy she's fighting gets attacked by what was his ally,
and then suddenly like the tide of the fight turns
because these people who were on mctavage's side are suddenly
on cassidy side. Yeah, and think like they're just going
around and killing people, and a bunch of wolves flee

(03:23:52):
into the night, and a bunch of the wolves are
like more submissive and they choose to stay and it's
really league And this is where I'm like, I think
Cassidy and Malice are both half vampires. I think that
Cassie can do some mind control stuff. I think she's
a hybrid werewolf because she's literally like mind controlling people. Yeah,
but that seems like they're winning. Yeah, it seems like

(03:24:14):
the tides turned in their winning. Now.

Speaker 3 (03:24:17):
Meanwhile, back of the bank.

Speaker 1 (03:24:20):
And get let me know when you get we get
to the part where you haven't heard yet. I mean
it's gonna be a while. It's literally like the end. Yeah,
so we get to the we get to the end,
or we get to the bank. Malice is a little
overwhelmed because there's a lot of were wolves. They're fighting,
but they're getting really tired and they're starting to get
a little bit like they know that this is not sustainable,
and they're still killing likings left, right and center. But

(03:24:43):
at one point, mctabash, who is like super strong and
super crazy, it seems like mctabash can sense some of
his wolves are taken away, like he feels he feels
a disserviance in the forest, and he starts blaming they're
them for it, rightfully, So these people is their fault?
Is their fault. He start talking about Cassidy, saying stuff
like if I hadn't turned her myself, then she'd be mine, like,

(03:25:08):
and he's started saying all this stuff about how he
has turned like families against each other because Malice is like,
she's my sister, she would never turn on me, and
mctabash's like, you don't know nothing. I could make them.
I could make her do whatever I want if she
was mine. And then he picks up a wall and
he drops it on Stiletto, and Stiletto tries to dodge,
but she's really tired, so her leg gets caught underneath

(03:25:29):
the lot. She gets pinned, yeah, by this wall, Malie.
Then like mctabba is trying to goad her. Malice is
trying to use this because she needs to heal, so
she is like, okay, I'm gonna try and stall her
time here.

Speaker 3 (03:25:43):
I'm gonna let him try and taunt me.

Speaker 1 (03:25:46):
So the more he's talking, it's kind of like that
thing is like let them monologues, you can have time.
So she's trying to heal and McTavish is doing this
whole thing where he's like, I know what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (03:25:56):
You're you're trying to stall so that backup.

Speaker 1 (03:25:58):
Will come, but backup's not coming, and she's like you're stupid,
No I'm not, and then she attacks him, and well,
what happens is she kind of maneuvers are circling each other,
and she maneuvers McTavish around until he forgets that Stiletto's there,
and she stabs him in the foot and then he
and the way that is described is that he slaps

(03:26:20):
her so hard that her body like flips to the
side accept her leg. That's how it's described, is that, like, so,
I'm like, I think her leg stays put and it
just gets ripped off. Possibly I thought it was just
like bent at a weird angle. I don't know. Yeah,
it's not clearly described. But is this big and bad

(03:26:41):
big bag hurdy, big bad hurdy and so and Soiletto's
down for the count. Yeah, regardless of what happens, if
her leg is still attached ent not, she's down for
the count. But it's enough of a distraction from Malice
to just like rush him, and she stabs through his
chest and he bites her on the shoulder, which is
interesting because that's how where wolves happen. It is, that's

(03:27:04):
how where wolves happen.

Speaker 3 (03:27:07):
But nothing seems to happen.

Speaker 1 (03:27:08):
To Malice though, which is interesting to note. And so
she then pulls her sword out again and stabs him dead.
He dies, Yay, he's dead, and he falls dead on
top of Stiletto, who is also not moving, and all
the other wolves run away, and Malice goes and beheads

(03:27:28):
McTavish just to make sure. And then she's like, oh,
so let us still breathing. Let me just let me
just and she smothers Stiletto to death. And this is
I do like the way that this is handled, Yeah,
because there is a moment of moral like debate where
Malice is like, this is a person. She is a

(03:27:49):
squad mate, Like I don't like her, but she is
on my side. This is technically an ally and she
is a person. But also she threatened to out my
str to the government. Yeah, and I can't have that.
I don't trust that she will keep my secret. Yeah,
And so she literally she wars with this for a second.

(03:28:10):
And I like that that that is shown. I like
that we see that moral dilemma before she ultimately decides
just gonna just gonna smother her to death. I'm just
gonna put my hand over her mouth and nose, so
she kills the weetto.

Speaker 4 (03:28:28):
She kills Stiletto, and then she like kind of like
what like hypes herself up to then call Ralph and
be like to sound upset, yeah, to be like, we
need to clean up crew in a body bag because
because Stiletto, because Stilletto is dead.

Speaker 1 (03:28:43):
Yeah, So then we do a time skip, hard cut,
hard cut, hard cut. Two weeks later, presumably the werewolf pack,
now under Cassidy's reign, has reclaimed the hotel and they're
working on cleaning the place up again and making it
liveable again.

Speaker 4 (03:28:59):
And Rory is there, yeah, but she is like, at
this point she's been there a while, she doesn't feel
like she belongs. She's upset because Cassidy has not claimed
her as an alpha.

Speaker 1 (03:29:12):
Or as a member, well like as an office she
has not claimed correct, Yes, this is yes. Sorry. So
Rory's kind of like I need to leave.

Speaker 3 (03:29:19):
I just gotta go.

Speaker 1 (03:29:20):
She's also kind of shunned by a lot of the
other wolves, even the ones who've known her for a
really long time are acting weird around her. Yeah, So
she goes to see Cassidy.

Speaker 4 (03:29:30):
And she actually she asked Cassidy like, why haven't you
claimed me? And Cassidy says like, I've tried, I can't.

Speaker 1 (03:29:36):
Yeah, there's something I don't it's not for lack of trying,
Like there's something that's stopping me from doing it, and
she asks, is it do you think it's malice? Like
Casside explicitly says, do you think that, like your connection
with my sister is what's stopping that? Yeah, And Rory
doesn't know. She's like, huh, yeah, but I do think

(03:29:56):
of her as my mate kind of yeah, And she says,
I think I need to just go and figure myself out,
and Cassie's like, that's fine. I do want you to
come back, like you're welcome to come back. Yeah, I
hope that you do when you figure yourself out. Cassie's chill,
and she's like you you're because Rory does the formal
thing of saying like can I stay in your territory
and Cassie's like, dude, yeah, of course you can stay here,

(03:30:18):
like you can live in Chicago like your family quote unquote.
She doesn't say that, but that's kind of the vibe, yeah,
is that she views Rory's family even if Rory is
not pack. Yeah. So she says, are you gonna go
with my sister? And Rory's like, I don't know, maybe,
And so Cassie says, just take care of her for
me and come back when you're when you figure yourself out.

(03:30:41):
That's where I had to stop, because you should I see. Okay, yeah,
well they hug it out. It's very nice. I'm like,
why can't you too? Honestly, you have better chemistry. They
have such better chemistry. But whatever. And there's like this
bit with Luth where Luther's a little like yeah about Rory,
but whatever. So Rory goes to leave, she passes Luther,

(03:31:04):
and Luther kind of like nods in understanding to her,
like he doesn't hate her. But then mal we hardly
cut over to Malice, who is gets a call from
her mom, and it turns out that Sophia has been
busy the past several weeks because the she works as
like a translator. I think she's like an interpreter, okay,

(03:31:28):
And I think that was mentioned earlier in the story,
that she was an interpreter, but it said that the CIA, basically,
like Malice, pulled strings to have the CIA keeping her
so busy with work that she wouldn't check in on
her kids. That's the explanation for why Sophia has.

Speaker 3 (03:31:46):
Not called in the bit all right, okay.

Speaker 1 (03:31:48):
So she calls just like, sorry, honey, work's been crazy.
That's why I haven't really called, like I want to
check in on you. Have you heard from your sister?
She still hasn't called me, and Malice is like, oh,
I gotta freaking get Cassie a new phone and tell
her to call mom because Mom is gonna get suspicious.
But thankfully their relationship is distant enough that you know
it'll be fined probably, And the call ends. Malice is

(03:32:13):
typing up the report about everything that just happened, and
then she hears like something hitting the walls of her house,
of her warehouse, and it sounds At first she ignores it,
but then the noises getting creat This this part was funny.
This is why I mentioning it. The noises keep getting louder,
and it sounds like somebody's throwing rocks at the side
of her house, and she's like, who the who's wearing

(03:32:33):
rocks in my house? So she goes outside and she
sees Rory out there with a brick kit hand like
Rory was about to throw because the rocks weren't working.
So she's like, I guess I'll just throw something bigger
throw the brick. So she was gonna throw a brick
at the warehouse and she sees Maose and Mouse like
what are you doing? And Rory's like, oh, I was
just trying to get your attention high. And she sees

(03:32:56):
that Rory has a Duffel bag and Maose is like,
are you going on a trip? And she's upset because
she thinks Rory's leaving. And she thinks Rory's leaving her,
and Rory's like, well, that's maybe up to you possibly,
and then she says that she kind of wants to
be with Malice, but also like, you know, only if

(03:33:18):
Malice wants to, I guess. And now it's like, we
can't do this, Rory. You know, we can't do this,
Like that's not who we are. And Rory's like, but
what if we pretended it was who we were? What
if we just like pretending we could have this until
we can't, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:33:30):
And maybe we can have it forever?

Speaker 1 (03:33:32):
Who's to say? And Malice decides that she yeah, let's
go for it, let's try And so it's very you haul,
you know what I'm saying, yep, And so she's like, yeah,
we can try dating we can try being together. And
Rory's like, cool, can I live here? And Alice is like, yeah,
you can live here, you can live here, but like

(03:33:53):
without a bomb strapped to your ankle. Yeah, willingly this time? Yeah,
And so they she goes into the to the apartment,
she goes to the warehouse, I should say, and she
gets she gets Malice to admit, yeah, that they she
wants to be in a relationship together, and then they
kiss and that's the end. All right, that's the end
of the book. And we're going to have our ending

(03:34:16):
thoughts on this book, so many of them a brief
word and our sponsors. All right, well, Chelsea, do we
want to move on to the final section of this podcast.
We should do that, all right, because I'm hungry. I'm
hungry too coming in to the finale of this review. Yep,
we have to get to the actual reviewing part where

(03:34:36):
we talk about how many of some kind of arbitrary
number we give to this how many moons? I was
also thinking moons.

Speaker 3 (03:34:46):
I was also thinking how many moons was I.

Speaker 1 (03:34:47):
Going to give it? Yeah, because it's got five moons.

Speaker 3 (03:34:50):
It's got five moons, So out of five.

Speaker 1 (03:34:52):
Moons, I am giving it two point seven. Oh, I'm
giving it two point seven moons because here's the thing.
I think that there were a lot of things about
this book that were actually interesting, And there was a
point about half, like I'm not halfway through, maybe like
a third of the way through, where I was kind

(03:35:12):
of in it. Okay, I was kind of in the
book where I was like, I think the premise of
this is a little camp. There's parts of it that
I think are a little silly, but I think the
world building could really pull me in, and I liked
a lot of the stuff that was happening. Yeah, Malice
kind of ruined it for me as a character. That's
the problem.

Speaker 4 (03:35:31):
Yeah, Honestly, if we had just focused on Cassidy and
Rory Ray.

Speaker 1 (03:35:36):
I'm fine with that would be a completely different book.
Malice as a character, in her presence as a love
interest kind of ruined the book for me. And like
the fact that the romance between Rory and Malice just
did not feel authentic. Authentic. Yeah, it felt forced, It
felt very abrupt, and it felt very kind of like blaw.

Speaker 3 (03:35:56):
Like, yeah, they found each other sexy, but that's kind
of it.

Speaker 4 (03:36:00):
The sex scenes weren't even like I didn't find them. Like,
I'm not a lesbian, but we have read gay and
lesbian novels that I feel like the sex is written
a lot better.

Speaker 1 (03:36:09):
Sure, I'm not gonna begrudge that I kind of found
it mid but in the sense of like it was fine.
Like I'm not gonna say it was it was great,
but I'm also we have read so far worse. We
have read so far worse. But there was there was
nothing except for the bit side, the points I pointed
out where it's just like everybody's coming from their tits
real hard. Except for that, I didn't find anything. Especially

(03:36:31):
the part that bothered me.

Speaker 4 (03:36:32):
The part that bothered me was once again writing sex
scenes where it's like lust is the only emotion.

Speaker 3 (03:36:38):
Sure, for sure, there's a lot more depth.

Speaker 4 (03:36:41):
There's nothing, you're not really drawing it out, You're not,
there's nothing. There's nothing really sexy about this sex scene.
It's really just kind of happening.

Speaker 1 (03:36:50):
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it doesn't seem like the characters
other than how they are personally feeling horny. Yeah, it
doesn't seem like they have investment in what's going on
very much.

Speaker 5 (03:37:00):
Yeah, and yeah, it's just kind of it's like it's
it's a little bit over a two point five in
the sense that it's like there were parts where.

Speaker 1 (03:37:11):
I was invested in this, and there are characters I like.
I gave it a one. You gave it a one star.

Speaker 3 (03:37:16):
I feel like you've rated other books higher that I
think sucked more.

Speaker 4 (03:37:19):
I think I was just so upset with Like, we're
coming from Akatar, which I realized you don't think of
as very good, you think of it as mid but
I really like it. And sure, we're coming from Go
Luck Yourself.

Speaker 1 (03:37:31):
Which was which all of us really enjoyed.

Speaker 4 (03:37:34):
Yeah, and we're coming to this and I'm just disappointed
and I'm just expinted again because it's like, I think
why I'm actually giving it a one is because there
was so much potential that it's just wasted, Whereas with
other things we've read that are terrible, it's like there's
nothing here that's redeemable.

Speaker 1 (03:37:48):
So I don't care. That's fair.

Speaker 3 (03:37:50):
Yeah, I think that I would rate because I think
I rated the.

Speaker 1 (03:37:53):
First Acatar book fairly highly. You and then no, you
did the same as me, So it was three out
of five. I think take a three.

Speaker 3 (03:38:00):
I feel like I gave it higher the first one.

Speaker 1 (03:38:02):
I thought we gave it the same because I gave
the first one three.

Speaker 3 (03:38:05):
Okay, I can't recall.

Speaker 1 (03:38:06):
I know that I give the I gave the second
one a five. I went down on my rating for
every book until we got to the third one, where
I was like, this is hot garbage and I hate
every part of it. You just really hated the ending.
I'm there was there was a lot of parts of
the book where I was infuriated. The ending was a
big part of that, for sure. Yeah, but no, then

(03:38:29):
there was also yeah, and the bit with more as well. Yes,
for sure there this book didn't infuriate me to that
level because it didn't. But that's the thing. It didn't
because there's no emotion. You were not emotionally invested in.
But I didn't care as much guitar. You're kind of
like you you're infuriated, but you're a little bit emotionally invested.
I will say again, but for this book, there was

(03:38:50):
a part where I was in it. Okay, there was
a part where I was like, oh, but I kind
of like what's going on and I kind of want
to know more. But the thing is that was the
first half of the book. Second half of the book,
I didn't. I really was just kind of wanting it
to be done. Yeah, I will say I very much
felt the second half of the book where I was
just kind of like, I just end it. Yeah, And
maybe that is a fair point to make, and I

(03:39:12):
will knock a couple slivers of that moon off. I'm
going to make it a two point.

Speaker 4 (03:39:16):
Make it two full moons and uh, like what waning
crescent or crescent?

Speaker 1 (03:39:21):
Yeah, not even a gibbis. I'm giving it a waning crescent. There,
you go, two full and one waning crescent moon there.

Speaker 3 (03:39:29):
That is what I give.

Speaker 1 (03:39:30):
And you give one moon I give.

Speaker 4 (03:39:32):
I'll give one and a crescent. Okay, I'll give it
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (03:39:36):
Is it a waxing quite crescent or is it a
waning crescent. I'm gonna say it's a waxing Oh oh okay,
because of the potential. There is potential.

Speaker 3 (03:39:43):
And it sounds like later in the series they ditch Mauise.

Speaker 1 (03:39:46):
And Rory entirely, and maybe that's better. Maybe that's better.
Maybe we should have just been focusing on Cassidy and
whoever Snow is. Maybe Snow is like Rory two kind
of sounds like it snow as Rory too. Honestly, just
from the premise so far.

Speaker 4 (03:39:59):
I don't I'm not invested because I have too much
on my TVR already and so I'm not invested enough
to like actually read it.

Speaker 1 (03:40:05):
But God no, But but I'm glad that there's maybe
hope for everyone, all of the lesbian romance lovers. We're
gonna look for you. We're gonna look for for you,
and Celeste, We're to find we.

Speaker 3 (03:40:18):
Want, we want to feed you, we want to give
you good stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:40:22):
Yeah, We're here for it.

Speaker 3 (03:40:25):
More Gaze, more Gaze, more monsters.

Speaker 1 (03:40:29):
More romance. For the love of God, I am on
my knees begging authors to just write characters who actually
love each other. Have none of you experienced human affection before?
Come on? Just lust? Just lust? All right, here's the thing. Yeah,
I do.

Speaker 4 (03:40:47):
And it's like I'm kind of going back and forth
on this one for the next book. Okay, same author,
because there is a standalone by T.

Speaker 1 (03:40:55):
King Fisher called Swordheard. Okay, I think you'd really like it. However,
there's another book by T. King Fisher called Clockwork. I
think it's the first one's Clockwork Boys, there is one
of the love interests does have a demon inside those,
So I'm wondering if may that's up to you. I'm president.
I think you'll like both of them. I am a

(03:41:16):
passenger for whatever happens.

Speaker 4 (03:41:19):
I kind of want you to read sword Heart first
because that was my introduction to T.

Speaker 1 (03:41:24):
Kim Fisher, and now I'm like, I must read all
of this shit. You whatever your heart desires, my friend,
as long as it is supernatural and as long as
it's romance that they both are. Okay, that's the thing.
Sword Hurt, though, is a standalone as of right now,
as a standalone and has the potential to have sequels,
and she's talked about wanting to write sequels, she just hasn't.

Speaker 4 (03:41:43):
Whereas Clockwork Boys is a duology.

Speaker 1 (03:41:47):
Okay. So, and the problem is that there's a trilogy
I want us to read. I will leave the choice
in your hands whether you want to consult with others
about this or consult your own counsel. I want to
sold you because and it's really just based on one's
a standalone and one's of duology. What is the situation?
Do you would you want to do the whole series?

(03:42:08):
Because we have the frigging Cord of Thorns and Roses
series that has not been completed, but I know you
want to complete.

Speaker 3 (03:42:13):
Yes, a big gap between.

Speaker 1 (03:42:16):
Those, Okay. With there being a big gap between this,
I was already planning on there being a big gap
between that. I don't have strong feelings because I don't
know the books, okay.

Speaker 3 (03:42:25):
And also I'm I'm fine with whatever.

Speaker 1 (03:42:27):
That's what I'm saying. I'm leaving it up to you
because I don't have strong feelings or piny.

Speaker 4 (03:42:30):
So if we did a duology, that would be two months, okay,
that would be June July, which would mean we could
do the rest of Akatar.

Speaker 1 (03:42:39):
August, September, October. Okay, that actually works out.

Speaker 4 (03:42:43):
Because that book series that I want us to read,
the trilogy, it's being traditionally published and I think it's
publishing in November, okay, so we could do that.

Speaker 1 (03:42:51):
I'm I'm here, I'm present. Yeah, I'm ready for whatever.
I'm gonna look it up just to and if you
want to give me a little treat, then i'll I mean,
I'm gonna say no, a little treat. Yeah, A demon
inside of a guy.

Speaker 4 (03:43:03):
It's it's not quite the only thing is, it's not
quite what you want because technically the demon is dead.

Speaker 1 (03:43:11):
Ah, but you're still living inside him. Interesting.

Speaker 3 (03:43:13):
Yeah, listen, I'm here for whatever again.

Speaker 1 (03:43:16):
I'm present. I'm gonna say we're gonna read sort Heard, Okay,
I think we're gonna read sort Heart next.

Speaker 4 (03:43:20):
I think we can eventually read The Clockwork Worse Duology. Sure,
but the next one we're gonna read is Swordhart, and
I think you're gonna really enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (03:43:28):
I'm and I'm excited to introduce you to T King Fisher.
I'm ready and willing. The name is familiar to me. Yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (03:43:36):
All right, that's what we got for five moons rising, Celeste.

Speaker 1 (03:43:39):
We have fulfilled, are packed to you. The pact is sealed. Please,
we know that you have. There's good stuff for you
out there, Celest. We will find it value yourself. And yeah,
it's being traditionally published in November, so we'll do that then.
All right, sounds good? All right, T thank you, listen,

(03:44:00):
Thank you to Parlor. The Paranorm will be back next
month with another one good an actually book I might enjoy.
I think you all we'll see. I'm sure we'll find out. Goodbye,
chilse Bye listeners