Welcome to Pages & Prejudice — your new favourite podcast exploring the best, worst, and most blush-worthy corners of the romance genre. Hosted by Stitch and Adrie Rose, two black femmes with academic chops and the psychological damage of unrestricted internet access, this show dives deep into romance fiction and media with critical insight, sharp humour, and a whole lot of heart. Whether you’re a diehard fan, or just romance-curious, join us for lively conversations on everything from tropes and trending titles to fanfiction, social media, cultural analysis, and sex-positive takes that challenge and charm. Pages & Prejudice isn’t just about love stories — it’s about loving stories enough to ask better questions.
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E80: Trope Court with Sanj Basker and Tyler McCall
Season 4 · Episode 20
Sunday, September 27, 2026 • Duration 01:27:20
Show Notes:
All tropes are innocent until poorly written.
Adrie and Stitch are joined by guests Sanj Basker and Tyler McCall — co-hosts of the Radio 831 podcast from 831 Stories — for a special Trope Court episode. Each of the four participants comes prepared to deliver a full-throated legal defense of a romance trope they believe is misunderstood. After each defense, the other three deliver a verdict: Guilty Pleasure, Misunderstood Masterpiece, or Case Dismissed.
Topics: trope court, secret baby, category romance, contemporary romance, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, C-dramas, miscommunication, historical romance, Sherry Thomas, Emily Henry, voice-note discourse, NTR (netorare), boys love, girls love, manga, manhwa, Yotomo Min Sensei, Katee Robert, cuckolding, hot wifing, billionaire romance, chaebol romance, K-dramas, plastic surgery culture, guilty pleasure
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
Nobody’s Baby but Mine but Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas
Under the Oak Tree by Suji
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Your Dad Will Do by Katee Robert
Terms and Conditions by Lauren Asher
Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre
Naachan NTR: The Person I Fell in Love With Is My Childhood Friend's Father by Yotamoi Min Sensei
Riho NTR: Ordered by My Husband to Get Fucked by His Colleague by Yamamoto Tomomitsu
E79: I Support Women’s Wrongs - Fandom and Readers Hate Unlikeable Women
Season 4 · Episode 19
Sunday, September 20, 2026 • Duration 01:11:30
Show Notes:
I don’t have to like her, I understand her.
Adrie and Stitch tackle the "unlikable female character" discourse head-on, tracing how fandom, publishing, and film consistently punish women and female characters for the exact same flaws that make male anti-heroes and rough heroes beloved. Drawing on academic work — from A.W. Wheaton's concept of the "rough hero" to Adriana Clavel-Vázquez's writing on rough heroines and imaginative resistance — they dig into why audiences eagerly forgive murderers, rapists, and misogynists (Quagmire, Hannibal, Cyril, Lestat) while turning on women for being confident, passive, horny, traumatized, or simply present (Rhaenyra, Skyler White, Julia from Cowboy Bebop, Shuri). The conversation ranges from Jane Austen's Emma to Tyler Perry's Acrimony, from Game of Thrones fandom's selective outrage to K-drama villainesses, landing on the same conclusion every time: "I support women's rights" often stops right where "and wrongs" begins.
Topics: unlikable female characters, rough heroes, anti-heroes, fandom double standards, protagonists, racialized double standards in fandom, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, Hannibal, Cowboy Bebop, Marvel/MCU, K-drama, webtoons, villainesses, misogyny in pop culture, feminist media analysis, women’s wrongs
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
The Remarried Empress by Alphatart
Shards of a Broken Glass Slipper
The Returned C-Rank Tank Won’t Die
For My Derelict Favorite
My Engagement Was Called Off Under False Accusations, but Who Ever Said My Face Was Ugly Beneath the Mask? By En Nekogawa with illustrations by Neneko Kobato
Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent
Famine (The Four Horseman #3) by Laura Thalassa
Charmed & Dangerous (Bronwyn the Witch #1) by Candace Havens
E78: You're Not Gay Enough - Bisexuality, Sapphics, and WLW Erasure in Romance
Season 4 · Episode 18
Sunday, September 13, 2026 • Duration 01:06:56
Show Notes:
You can be bisexual, but only if you’ve never touched a man.
Adrie and Stitch tackle the endless discourse around books "mismarketed" as sapphic when their bisexual leads also sleep with men. They break down what sapphic actually means, why bi women get treated as secretly straight (or not queer enough), and how "gold star" purity tests and political lesbianism collapse into transphobia. The conversation widens into heteropessimism, fandom's discomfort with femslash, the whiteness of biphobic discourse, and a eulogy-adjacent “discussion” of Gloria Steinem — before closing out with a stacked round of bisexual-lead romance recommendations.
Topics: sapphic marketing, bisexual erasure, biphobia, gold star gays, political lesbianism, compulsory heterosexuality, heteropessimism, Achillean romance, M/M romance, WLW romance, Heated Rivalry, fandom shipping discourse, femslash, transphobia, How to Get Away With Murder, Annalise Keating, age-gap romance, white feminism, Gloria Steinem, poly romance, why choose romance, queer romance
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
Vengefully Matched by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff
Two for Tea by CM Nascosta
Romancing the Werewolf by Gail Carriger
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert
The Art of Three by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese
Every Kit Rocha book, basically but The Sectors specifically
A Rational Arrangement by L Rowyn
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E77: My Opp, My Man - Dramione, Zutara, & the Enemies to Lovers Industrial Complex
Season 4 · Episode 17
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Duration 01:22:50
Show Notes:
My man, my man, my man… is trying to kill me.
Adrie and Stitch are joined by pop culture critic and video essayist Princess Weekes to dig into the enemies-to-lovers trope across anime, fanfic, and romance publishing. They trace their earliest ships (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Dramione, SwanQueen), argue about what modern romance gets wrong when it "mismarkets" itself as enemies to lovers, and debate what actually makes the trope work — narrative overlap, ideological reconciliation, and real stakes, not just banter.
Topics: enemies to lovers, rivals to lovers, fandom shipping wars, fanfiction, omegaverse, dark romance, erotica vs. romance, historical romance, second chance romance, anti-hero tropes, Dramione, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zutara, Kataang, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spuffy, Fuffy, fandom discourse, cancel culture, thought crimes, ASOIAF
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
Broken Flames by MK Ahearn
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
Anti hero, edited by Fiona Peters and Rebecca Stewart
Previous Episodes:
E69: Leave Room for My God Complex - Kink Panic and the New Puriteens
E76: What’s in a Name - Romance, Erotica, Fairy Porn, and Smut
Season 4 · Episode 16
Sunday, August 30, 2026 • Duration 01:19:13
Show Notes:
If I had a nickel for every time someone reduced the entirety of the romance genre to “smut,” I’d have enough money to be my own billionaire book boyfriend.
Adrie and Stitch dig into the TikTok discourse around "smut," "fairy porn," and romantasy — a conversation that starts with why Adrie hates the word smut and ends with a rigorous taxonomy of romance, erotic romance, erotica, and pornography. Along the way, they trace the through line from Anthony Comstock's 19th-century censorship crusade to contemporary age-verification legislation, purity culture in fandom, and why women reading for pleasure has always made someone, somewhere, deeply uncomfortable.
Topics: romance, erotic romance, erotica, pornography, romantasy, fantasy romance, dark romance, smut discourse, the Comstock Act, publishing censorship, age verification, KOSA, internet regulation, fandom purity culture, religious repression, women's literacy, feminist discourse, genre fiction
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
A Touch of Taboo series by Katee Robert
Sinner by Sierra Simone
Father by Loki Renard
Guarded by the Snake by Layla Fae
Training the Receptionist by Juniper Bell
The Bachelor Machine by M Christian
THE GODWICKS by Tiffany Reisz
The Scheming Crown Prince’s Wicket Consort by Subaru Kayano
E75: Girl That's the Whole Plot - How Romance Marketing Became Trope Soup
Season 4 · Episode 15
Sunday, August 23, 2026 • Duration 01:12:38
Show Notes:
Enemies to lovers, fake dating, one bed – go girl, give me… the entire story.
Adrie and Stitch dive into the world of romance marketing — specifically, the increasingly common practice of selling books through exhaustive trope lists rather than traditional publishing shorthand. They trace how genre conventions evolved from Jane Austen to bodice rippers to the algorithm-driven Canva graphics flooding BookTok today, arguing that tropes are a powerful tool that authors and publishers are wielding with diminishing returns — and diminishing accuracy. Along the way, they unpack how societal shifts (birth control, women entering the workforce, divorce becoming normalized) have always driven the emergence of new romantic conventions, and why the current moment feels less like evolution and more like a race to the bottom of the SEO barrel.
Topics: romance publishing history, trope marketing, SEO and algorithms, bodice rippers, category romance, Harlequin and Mills & Boon, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, only one bed, rivals to lovers, omegaverse, reverse harem, dark romance, mob and mafia romance, paranormal romance, YA romance, urban fantasy, transmigration romance, Korean webtoons, boys love, danmei, spoilers, fandom studies
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
Be My Bad Guy by Kate Prior (enemies to lovers, billionaire boyfriend, almost too dumb to die)
Luxuria by Colette Rhodes (primal kink, breeding kink, miscommunication, billionaire boyfriend, grumpy x sunshine, almost fated mates, marriage of convenience)
The Death-Made Prince by Lisette Marshall (enemies to lovers, miscommunication, slow burn, he falls first)
Marital Enemies (rivals to lovers x 2, transmigration, second chance romance, miscommunication.)
E74: Paging Inmate Baby Girl - Captivity and Kink in Dark Romance
Season 4 · Episode 14
Sunday, August 16, 2026 • Duration 01:34:08
Show Notes:
Everyone hates alpha-holes until the hero is a 7-foot tall, genetically modified war criminal being held captive in a secret underground lab.
Content Warning: This episode includes frank discussions of dubious consent, non-consent, and other fraught power and relationship dynamics.
Adrie and Stitch dive into the world of prison romance — a subgenre of romance and dark erotica centered on men (and occasionally other beings) who are deprived of liberty, whether in correctional facilities, medical institutions, or otherwise controlled environments. They're joined by licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist Andrew Pari, who has pioneered work closing the gap between kink/BDSM communities and clinical psychology, and who just finished writing a book chapter on consensual non-consent. Together, all three push back on the discourse around dark romance as uniquely harmful, arguing that women's rape fantasies are neither new nor dangerous — and that curiosity, not condemnation, is the real antidote.
Topics: prison romance, institutionalization romance, dark romance, dark erotica, omegaverse, transmigration romance, Korean webtoons, boys love, dubcon, CNC, consensual non-consent, BDSM, caretaker romance, kink psychology, sexual trauma, rape fantasy, heteropessimism, feminist discourse, fandom studies
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
Cottonmouth by Naomi Lucas
Releasing Maladek by Victoria Aveline
The Warrior of Rozun duology by Zoey Draven
Jax: The Boundarylands Omegaverse by Callie Rhodes
Prison Breakfast by Ziddo
I Met The Male Lead in Prison by Moon Sihyun and Hyeseong
Under Grand Hotel by Sadahiro Mika
FOG LAND by POGO
I Failed to Oust the Villain!
E73: Leave the Mask On - Why Romance Readers Love Masked Men
Stitch and Adrie dive into the world of masked man romance — a subgenre of dark romance and erotica centered on men (and occasionally other entities) who conceal their faces. Stitch, newly obsessed with the trope, breaks down its defining elements: the kinks involved (stalking, primal play, sex clubs, consensual non-consent), the recurring character archetypes, and the surprisingly vulnerable emotional cores hiding beneath all those balaclavas. Adrie brings a fresh perspective as someone less familiar with the subgenre, offering examples from adjacent tropes — including a hooded shadow creature from CM Nascosta and a masked alien king — while both hosts discuss how these fantasies connect to real cultural touchstones like Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street, and Nosferatu. They also push back on the discourse around dark romance as uniquely harmful, arguing that these fantasies are neither new nor dangerous.
Topics: masked man romance, dark romance, dark erotica, horror romance, monster romance, alien romance, romantasy, fantasy romance, omegaverse, CNC, dubcon, primal play, stalker romance, slasher romance, masked men
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
BJ Alex
Captured By The Masked Murderer: Okay, We'll Get Cozy... Just Don't Kill Me!
Mask Danshi: This Shouldn't Lead to Love
Ruling Sikthand by Victoria Aveline
The Princess & the Spy series by Lisette Marshall (temporarily unpublished)
The Viridian Priestess series by Katrina Calandra
Two for Tea by CM Nascosta
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror by Carissa Broadbent
Non-Fiction:
Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde
E72: Shameless Fandom - Ditching Guilty Pleasures and the Culture of Fan Shame
Season 4 · Episode 12
Sunday, August 2, 2026 • Duration 01:17:24
Show Notes:
I am a freak and I am proud.
Why are so many fans hiding their AO3 bookmarks, running private accounts, and apologizing for what they love? In this episode of Pages & Prejudice, Stitch and Adrie Rose dig into the culture of shame, guilt, and fear that has taken over fandom spaces — and why it's making everyone miserable. Drawing on cultural anthropology, Ruth Benedict's guilt/shame/fear society framework, and years of firsthand fandom experience, they break down how anti-fandom, call-out culture, and the concept of "guilty pleasures" are pushing fans to hide, self-censor, and turn on each other.
E71: Second Chance Romance - Why Readers Love Love Stories About Trying Again
Season 4 · Episode 11
Sunday, July 26, 2026 • Duration 01:26:29
Show Notes:
Go forth and live your best trope!
Adrie and Stitch sit down with Maggie North, Canadian author and anesthesiologist, to discuss her latest novel Fossil Feud — an almost second-chance, contemporary romance set against the world of citizen science and paleontology. They talk about the science and history baked into the book, why romance deserves more credit as an intellectual pursuit, what it means to write a protagonist who weaponizes her own rules to avoid being hurt again, and how a discipline built on unearthing the past became the perfect metaphor for love, grief, and the people we're always becoming.
Fossil Feud comes out July 28, 2026!
Topics: Maggie North, Fossil Feud, second chance romance, STEM, paleontology, Bone Wars, women's anger, complex female characters, heteropessimism, arrival fallacy, Jurassic Park
adrie rose (@adrierising on bsky, twitter, instagram, & tiktok)
Stitch (@stitch on bsky, @stitchmediamix on instagram)
Guests:Princess Weekes is an Assistant Editor at the Geek Girl Pop Culture Site, The Mary Sue and the co-host/co-writer of the PBS Digital Series, It's Lit. She got her Master's Degree at Brooklyn College in Literary Theory where she wrote about colorism in fairy tales and became inspired to write, The Johnson Bay Witches. A born and raised Brooklynite, when she isn't busy writing, she's busy contemplating cult-classic television shows that ended decades ago. The Johnson Bay Witches is her first novel.
adrie rose (@adrierising on bsky, twitter, instagram, & tiktok)
Stitch (@stitch on bsky, @stitchmediamix on instagram)
Guests:Andrew Pari is a psychotherapist and Founder of Sexual Awakening & Awareness, dedicated to bridging the conversation between traditional psychotherapy and kink knowledge by treating sexualized trauma through a sex-positive lens. He is the creator of the concept of Curative Kink and has developed the first therapeutic model allowing for the re-experiencing of sexual trauma to create healing in an environment of safety and trust. A nationally recognized expert in trauma and sexualized violence, he’s developed sex trade policy and hosted worldwide online discussions on rape. He recently finished writing a chapter on Consensual Non-Consent for the first clinical textbook on Kink Psychotherapy. He adores his Russian Blue kitty, Finley, who keeps Andrew grounded in the important things in life.
adrie rose (@adrierising on bsky, twitter, instagram, & tiktok)
Stitch (@stitch on bsky, @stitchmediamix on instagram)
Guests:
Maggie North writes deeply emotional, strangely hilarious romance novels about introverts, STEM, Canada, and other overlooked, underappreciated things you’d love to discover. A doctor by day, author by night, she lives in Ottawa, Canada with the man she met in ninth grade, their kid, and a rotating cast of hypoallergenic aquarium friends. Maggie enjoys being autistic a lot more since her diagnosis as an adult. Her books include RULES FOR SECOND CHANCES, THE RIPPLE EFFECT, and FOSSIL FEUD.
