DREAD REVIEWS 22
Dad Reads and Examines Authors while Distracted
DREAD Reviews Table of Contents (Searchable)
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Ancient and Classical Rome featured a type of hardcore grit that’s proven unequaled* by any other civilization in history since. Rome and its successor states spanned a period lasting longer than 2,200 years. Starting as one humble little village among many, its people dreamed big, and one day it birthed the “Eternal City.”
“You cheer my heart, who build as if Rome would be eternal.” -Attributed to Augustus
*[Okay, so this doesn’t beat Egypt (which Rome conquered. That kingdom lasted from the Early Dynastic Period (~3100 BC) to their Ptolemaic end (30 BC), or about 3,000 years].
[Oh, there’s also Persia/Iran, from the Elamite civilization (~2700 BC) to the Sassanid fall to Arabic/Islamic rule (651 AD). That’s over 3,300 years, also exceeding Rome].
[Aaand… there’s this little place you may have heard of… China. The Xin Dynasty has a disputed, almost mythical start around 2070 BC. Successor dynasties enjoyed the “Mandate of Heaven” well into modern times (1911 AD), almost 4,000 years. While the starting date is disputed, even if it’s off, Rome’s longevity is smoked by China. “But the Mongols-” Yes, Mongols invaded and established the Yuan destiny, but they adopted Chinese culture and customs and ruled from Beijing and were legitimized by following dynasties just like the others (Rome has analogous events in its long history, neither civilization’s government got dealt a death blow)].
[But, sigh, I guess I better throw in India: From the Indus Valley Civilization (~2600 BC) to the end of the Mughal Empire at the hands of the British (1858 AD), it’s almost 4,500 years. Clearly surpassing Rome and all the rest (Alexander the Great tried his best to stop this early and failed). This civilization maintained its cultural core, linguistic continuity, its caste system, and its geographical influence throughout its long history, finally falling to internal rebellion (and a little timely push from UK adventurers)].
Those inconvenient titans of longevity, properly cited, will now be ignored.
Because - ROME! The East contains billions of souls who will disagree with everything I’m about to say but that won’t stop me from pretending they don’t exist for a hot minute. Starting now-
Sadly, nothing lasts forever.
Or does it?
The old Roman Empire leaves a mark on global politics and culture that’s impossible to ignore, a legacy like the ghost of some overachieving ancestor who still haunts Western family reunions. Their Republic’s obsession with toga-clad debates and power-sharing antics inspires modern democracies, lending heavily to things like the U.S. Constitution and the structures of parliaments. Fun fact: the US Constitution is the oldest still-active single national founding document in the world! Roman law, scribbled on the Twelve Tables and beefed up in the Corpus Juris Civilis, is daddy to all Western legal systems, emphasizing concepts of fairness like due process, universal application of law, precedent, and much more. Those old Latins’ chattiness also spawned the Romance languages, sneaking into English through their know-it-all cousins the French (thankfully, Alcuin of York made the language actually legible before the English language really took off. It needs all the help it can get!).
Roman arts and philosophy likewise hog the spotlight in our classrooms. And their engineering - their aqueducts, domes, and roads - still inspire jealousy, even in modern times. And love it or not, let’s not forget they turned Christianity into the mightiest global franchise on Earth. Rome’s basically the gift that keeps on giving - or, perhaps, that washed-up guy you thought had died yet here he is texting you yet another one of his mixtapes.
So, I had an epiphany the other day (huh, this makes it sound like I ever go one day without thinking about Rome). Rome’s got an epic history of not just successes, but also failures. Gaulish invasions, Samnite humiliations, Carthaginian curb-stomps - just to name a few. I, too, have my own saga of setbacks - a long list of horrible embarrassments I’d really love to edit out of history (can damnatio memoriae become a thing again?). If the greatest civilization on Earth can take a beating and carry on, so can I!
In 390 BC, Brennus and his Gauls crashed Rome’s party in its early stages. They torched the city and probably also review-bombed the place on Yelp just to be extra rude. And when it came time to pay tribute they even rigged the gold-weighing scales - when the Romans complained, Brennus smirked, tossed his sword on the scale, and gave us the most savage line ever delivered in history:
“Woe to the conquered.”
It’s like that one time I order a “large” pizza and only get a glorified personal pan that wouldn’t satisfy a 4-year-old. I complain to the delivery guy and he shrugs and says, “That’s what you paid for.” Do I curl up and swear off pizza forever? No! I reorder from a better joint - just like Rome rebuilt their city - brick by messy brick. No blueprint, no HOA approval, just pure stubbornness and hustle, just like when I sigh, grit my teeth, and spend 20 minutes signing up for “McCheezyFast’s” rewards and e-mail spam program - some things are just too important to let yourself give in.
In 321 BC, Rome’s army got punked at the Caudine Forks. Trapped by Samnites, they surrendered without a swing. The cruel Sammys paraded the Romans under a yoke. The Samnites clearly never read Niccolo Machiavelli (“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.”) Did Rome sulk and slink back home, defeated? No! They plotted revenge like scorned reality game show TVs stars and over the next decade or so won three whole wars against the Samnites.
When I lock myself out of my apartment at 2 a.m., wearing nothing but flip-flops and a hoodie, do I move to a new city in shame? No! I sweet-talk the neighbors into some pants, beg for a call on their phone, tell the landlord how sorry I am and how this will never happen again (again), and get back inside in time for a solid 4 hours of sleep before work. Now I keep a spare key ready like it’s the One Ring - just like how the Romans made military and political reforms so they’d be ready next time. Rome won the Samnite Wars; I win at not sleeping pantsless on my doorstep.
Fast forward to 216 BC, Rome’s staring into the jaws of Carthaginian wrath at Cannae. Rome lost 55,000–70,000 men in one day (after already bleeding 60,000 in prior defeats). It was the single bloodiest day of combat in human history by some counts, with its higher estimate beating the initial 24 hours of WWI’s Battle of the Somme (similar loss in total casualties, but only reaching 1/3 Cannae’s total killed). It’s not an exaggeration to see Hannibal as a walking, charismatic, reusable man-shaped nuclear weapon - except swifter, since radioactive fallout normally takes days to kill the majority of its victims.
Most civilizations would wave the white flag and beg for mercy at a defeat like this - perhaps the most crushing victory ever witnessed on earth! But did Rome give up? No! After a few days of panic and suicide (admittedly embarrassing), the people of the Eternal City slapped themselves in the face, got their act together, doubled down, and fought for 15 years to dislodge Hannibal from the Italian Peninsula. Eventually Hannibal suffered two defeats - both at the hands of Scipio Africanus (will this poor guy forever be in Hannibal’s shadow?). Rome eventually had Carthage eating dirt - salty dirt, according to a popular myth.
This is no different from that day I tanked a final exam. I left class already ashamed, only to find a parking ticket and a wheel clamp on my tire as a result of unpaid fines. Worse, I took out my phone and immediately dropped it in a puddle - all right before lunch! Did I drop out to wander the countryside, ultimately joining a circus? Tempting, but no (still on the bucket list). Instead I studied harder, got a job, paid the fine, and bought a water-resistant phone case. Rome sacked Carthage and salted its fields (not really); I aced the retake then treated myself to tacos.
Rome’s spirit was tougher than a $2 steak. You could burn their city, yoke their soldiers, slaughter their armies - Romans would just spit in your eye and keep swinging. Me? I’ve survived Wi-Fi crashes during Zoom calls, burned toast, set off smoke alarms, and one time suffered a haircut that made me look like a budget boy-band reject. Each time, I dusted off, laughed grimly, and kept going, just like Rome. Rome built an empire; I built a pretty cool playlist for my comeback montage.
So, here’s to Rome and my own mini-Rome moments. No matter how low you fall, you can still amount to greatness! Whether it’s Gauls at the gate or a barista misspelling your name the 7th day in a row, you gotta rebuild, plot, and persist. It’s the only chance you’ve got that someone might carve your bust in marble someday.
Please check out some of these stories:
Wow. This diary entry in Milk & Honey makes you feel all the things and I must applaud her for the sheer audacity of her pen.
This story is heavy, raw, and could draw a tear from the grumpiest of unfed cats. Meg returns from the lowest of lows and now wields words like a literary ninja. Her description of stem cells smelling like beets has me half-convinced she’s a secret sentient carrot moonlighting as a memoirist. The bit about clawing out of a coffin with her nails - I review plenty of horror in this newsletter, but this line glued me up in a frightful box faster than the highest forms of fiction.
Meg’s not just surviving; she’s serving up prose and sparkle. Five stars for five years - It might look like I’m smiling, but now I must depart and go ugly-cry into my coffee:
I am a soccer referee of 30 years. I took a dive into Adam McDermont’s “In Defence Of ‘Sportsball,’” looking for a fiery sermon that would not just crown “football” as England’s invention, but as mankind’s divine savior. Instead, I get this polite pamphlet that barely scratches the surface of the beautiful game’s world-conquering potential! McDermont’s defense is like a half-hearted futsal kick-in that immediately clips the wall. Come now, sir, you’re not rallying the terraces with this! Fútbol isn’t just a sport; it’s the key to cultural rebirth!
McDermont tip-toes around football’s role as England’s cultural cornerstone, mumbling about it being an English invention threatened by “cultural deracination.” Rookie-level passion! I demand he immediately declare kicky-ball to be sacred glue of not just Britishness, but a better world for all! All nations should demand their citizens memorize their country’s World Cup rosters or face exile to remote islands where they play in one of those “hit things with sticks” franchises - just desserts!
He’s got a point with the whole foreign players diluting the Premier Leagues thing. I’m more worried about competitiveness, but I concede Adam’s point - he’s worried about tapas on the team bus. But why be so light handed - call it what it is! Denounce them for what they are; a full-blown invasion force, replacing pie and mash with paella! He suggests a 50-50 native-to-foreign player ratio - that’s cute, but why not mandate 100% homegrown lineups? Before a match against their American cousins, English players and managers should recite Chaucer against Walt Whitman in a pregame rap-battle. Go big, Adam, or go home!
And what’s this lukewarm praise for the great game’s virtues? Dedication, discipline, artistry? Yawn! This isn’t a book report for uni; sportsball is a call to arms! The game itself is the literal blueprint for utopia where kids learn geometry via corner kicks and philosophy through VAR debates. McDermont correctly calls it a meritocracy, but he stops short of proposing we replace election recounts with penalty shootouts. Imagine the gravitas of a Prime Minister who won their votes nutmegging several dozen MPs for 90 minutes on live television. Adam’s got vision, sure, but where are his guts? Why this sudden screech to a halt when the job’s only half done?
Most galling, McDermont mentions fans protesting “industrial-scale” horrors on June 28th, then cites the game like it’s some side quest to far more important concerns. Sir! Fans uniting for justice is the main event! He should call for every stadium to become a fortress of activism, with half-time chants doubling as policy demands. His plea for “balance” - balance! Football IS balance! Soccer is family and nation! Your wives and mothers must knit scarves for the lads, and your dog should be named after Bobby Moore - step it up, Adam!
McDermont’s article is a step in the right direction, I give it this. And he’s right - football is England’s heritage; a history and destiny to take pride in, a meritocratic religion that’s spread faster than anything in history, beating even coinage and the written word. But I’m not sure he’s yet quite ready to pledge his soul wholly to the Church of the Truncated Icosahedron - bold up, mate, or risk relegation to punt-it purgatory:
“What God Has Made Crooked” is a sweat-soaked, cigarette-ashed simmer, fusing gritty labor with even grittier philosophy. Bill, a war-scarred, chain-smoking tree-cutter, and his young buddy David, wrestle a doomed willow and a suffering cow on a hellishly hot day. As I read, though, every poignant moment punches me further back through time. For some reason - and don’t ask how - with each event in the story, I remember increasingly ancient, obscure conflicts I inexplicably fought in like they just happened yesterday.
Bill’s cigarette obsession - spitting on the coal to save the butt - had me laughing harder than a drill sergeant at a doomed private’s terrible joke. In the little-known Havana Cuban Cigar brawl of 1961, dockworkers laid each other low over rationed Cohibas from the Missile Crisis aftermath. They’d snuff their stogies mid-puff, hoarding them for “later,” only to brawl in the street for ownership of the last match in town. Bill’s over here patting his cigarette pack like it’s his one and only trusted friend and I couldn’t help but see him rolling up his sleeves to join the riots in my head, saying: “One more drag before the bombs drop.”
The willow tree, lush but doomed due to its broken swing, takes me back to the Crimean Swing Set Skirmish of 1853, where I watch Russian serfs and British subjects in a Crimean village feud over a rope swing. Hung from a birch during a rare moment of international camaraderie, now each side claims it as “morale property.” The officers end the mass brawl and get their men in line only for the tree to burn down during a drunken spat later in the night. Rorschalk’s farmer character, with his throat-slitting gesture, takes the appearance of a Cossack cursing the swing as a blight on mankind, lamp in hand, growling, “There will be no more of this oscillation nonsense on my watch.”
David’s quiet, gut-sinking revelation about Tamara’s possible pregnancy has Bill reflecting on his own shotgun marriage. Me? I reflect on the Franco-Prussian Parentage Pact of 1870, where I see a Prussian officer, fresh from Sedan, wed a French barmaid after a “strategic indiscretion” in a hayloft. Surprise: the whole regiment turns the party into a riot, hurling bottles of schnapps then brandishing smuggled bayonets. But then officers came out and the flogging starts, and ultimately everyone gets home alive minus a few straps and bloody noses. Bill doesn’t know it, but his gruff advice and shrug to David perfectly mimic one officer’s demeanor as he raises a flask and tells me: “Kid, raising a French baby beats a bayonet to the ribs.”
The farmer’s callous dismissal of the cow’s suffering, followed by his fence-climb flop and ripped overalls has me recalling the Danish Goat Gaffe of 937 AD. I witness a Danish farmer make the difficult decision to give up his dying livestock during an Anglo-Saxon foraging raid, only to trip over a fence and flash the contents of his britches to a clutch of laughing archer levies from Wessex. The farmer’s “Whooee!” when the cow survives is just like that Dane’s, flapping his torn wool undies and yelling, “By Thunor, it’s hotter than a smelter in here. Don’t mind me buttocks, just getting some fresh air!”
The cow’s breech birth, with Bill, David, and the farmer yanking out a dead calf like some macabre tug-of-war, hurls me into the harrowing days of the Byzantine Bovine Barrage of 674 AD, where I watch Romani conscripts botch a cow’s delivery during a Sassanid siege. Hooves stuck fast, the cow wails, all while fiery stones sail overhead to smash down towers, spreading death and ruin. Men from Thracian and Macedonian Themes slip in the muck, cursing the buzz of Persian arrows that pinch their skin through their heavy mail hauberks. Bill’s medic instincts, drenched in afterbirth, mirror that frantic day, horror transmuting to laughter as I imagine him shouting from under a Phrigian helmet : “Pull, you icon-kissing fools, before the ‘Nids cut us down to shawarma!”
Bill’s Vietnam flashback, mercy-killing a soldier with “Swiss cheese intestines,” hits me like a catapult, dragging me back to the Hunnic Mercy Killings of 451 AD. Attila’s medics at a Pannonian camp, furtive and hollow-eyed, decide which of their wounded get the “quick blade” while Roman Foederati and their grieving, regicided German allies barrel down on us. The flies, the screams, the cruel decisions - Bill’s shaking hands are a dead ringer for history’s grim rerun, with Bill swapping a K-Bar for a cigarette like a cowardly Hun trading away his spear for a pony to flee the field.
The near-disaster of the willow’s falling bough, thanks to David’s rope-tying blunder, echo the chaos of the Minoan Pulley Panic of 1600 BC, where I see Cretan engineers flub a bull statue hoist during a Knossos festival. Ropes tangled, the statue swings wildly, priests and maidens diving into olive groves to much undignified screaming and clutching of loincloths. David’s “What do I do?” panic while Bill clings to the tree becomes Minoan mayhem reborn, and Bill’s aspect becomes a bronze-age foreman barking: “Unwrap it, you bull-worshipping dunce!” Hopefully the morrow sees a volcanic eruption so embarrassment can be forgotten just as fast as all those ancient lawsuits.
Finally, Bill’s decision to buy David a six-pack harks to the Sumerian Ale Accord of 3100 BC. Uruk’s laborers, sweaty from placing the last stone atop the tallest ziggurat in town, barter beer for barley during a Lugal’s feast, only to devolve into a mass of rioters when the reserve runs dry. Bill’s “You better not rat me out” deal with David feels like a Sumerian handshake, an ancient warrior grip made wrist-to-wrist, taking me back to that open-air tavern scene of burly men clinking clay mugs: “To slow suicides and bad knots!”
Rorschalk’s sweaty and introspective tale tickles me right in my ancient funny bone, dragging me through conflicts so obscure they make the Peloponnesian War seem like a current event. If you’ve ever laughed at life’s absurdity while dodging falling branches and dead calves, or if you simply have too many reincarnated ghosts in your bones, this story’s your last cigarette:
Bug go SPLAT:
DARKLING is what happens when a K-pop agency’s HR department is subjected to an executive takeover, a god complex, and a Netflix budget. Loosely inspired by the Korean folktale “Dokkaebi Bangmangi,” this story swaps moral goblins for a corporate overlord so ruthless it makes a Battle Royale deathmatch seem like a kids’ picnic. PCW Entertainment™, our deranged secretive puppet master, micromanages four idols to their doom: Bong-gil, Bryan, Yìzé, and Aiko. These hapless youth talents are locked into a glittery cage fight where the prize is survival and the penalty for missing a dance step is, well, a balisong to the gut. It’s absurd, it’s unhinged, and it’s so over-the-top it’s landed an olympic backflip into my guilty-pleasure reading list.
PCW Entertainment™, the story’s villain disguised as a record label, runs a studio-turned-corporate-nightmare that would make Enron blush. Their dance sheet for LIMINAL’s single “DOKKAEBI” reads like an employee handbook doubling as a serial killer’s diary. “No slacking, no crying, no smoking, no drinking,” they bark, while demanding “more blood, sweat, and tears than a genocide.” Yikes!
PCW, we’ve got to lose one - either the Monster energy drinks, or the fascism - we can’t have both! They scold Bryan for looking like a ghost without makeup, ban Aiko’s belly button ring like it’s a national security threat, and shame Yìzé for daring to have an opinion on the South China Sea. It’s as if they’re running a boot camp for musical robots where the only acceptable emotions are “smile” and “synchronize.” Forget choreography, this is corporate overreach and executive meddling so intense it’s performed a hostile takeover of the human soul.
Like the iconic Japanese thriller Battle Royale, DARKLING traps these pretty-boy idols in a pressure cooker - may the scrappiest survive. PCW’s studio is their death island and the rules are simple: hit your mark, sing on key, or get ready for a knife fight in Goryeotown. The idols - all reality TV archetypes - are pitted against each other via PCW’s passive-aggressive memos. Bong-gil’s the brooding drunk with a secret lover; Bryan’s the tragic tabloid magnet; Yìzé’s the workaholic with a crush; and Aiko’s the ex-yakuza wildcard one bad rehearsal away from a Kill Bill reenactment. The dance floor turns into a gladiatorial arena, complete with a knife and a series of concussive meetups with your face and a radiator. You can almost hear PCW’s executives cackle: “Achievement get: Blunt-force multicultural extravaganza!”
PCW takes their mission to “wring diamonds out of roughs” quite seriously. They’re less a music label and more a cult, issuing edicts like “un-scrunch your face” and “curl your fingers like a full-bloom bistorta incanica” (because nothing says K-pop stardom like obscure floral metaphors). When they’re not policing crop tops or sodomy scandals, they’re gaslighting the boys into thinking all this misery is their fault. “You’re ungrateful” - corporate doublespeak framing ten years of exploitation and a dead bandmate as minor workplace hiccups.
Where Battle Royale had exploding collars, DARKLING has the invisible chokehold of fame. The idols’ lives are the product of overwork and underappreciation. PCW’s everpresent voice drips with faux sympathy and pushes the boys to their breaking point. Bryan’s hanging from a ceiling fan is “Just another common sight in our great city,” and Aiko’s bashing heads is “just business, don’t cry.” By the time Bong-gil and Yìzé are dodging PCW’s grasp, hands clasped in a sweaty, bloody escape, you’re rooting for them to burn the whole studio down.
DARKLING is a riot with how hard it leans into grim absurdity. I’d never realized how rich a scene K-pop is for horror and dystopia. Here, the real monsters aren’t dokkaebi, but the corporate machine. It demands “effervescence in public consciousness” even as the bodies pile up. Battle Royale shows us what happens when you give middle-school kids weapons and a death mandate, DARKLING does something similar but in a more cerebral and, darkly, more believable way. These idols’ dance routines and grudges are a whole other level of unhinged. Its savagery lurks beneath the sparkle. Despite the carnage you’ll witness, you might end your read wondering if the real crime is PCW’s horrifying taste in metaphors:
Dad’s Guidebook: A Primer For Life
Losing is the secret sauce to winning at life - unless you’re T-Pain, the glittery unicorn of victory who could eat a burrito while singing the phone book and win American Idol. Since you’re not T-Pain, you must learn to embrace your Ls, and nowhere is this more true than on the sports field. Learn to handle a few curveballs on the pitch and you’ll prep yourself for challenges in the real world.
Auto-tune or not, T-Pain’s a beast who’d clearly crush the competition in any arena. Ignoring that man’s obvious perfection, Dad focuses on us mere mortals, explaining how we learn more from eating dirt in dodgeball than flexing our fake Ws. Competitive sports, from “recreational” kickball to American Gladiators, should be our go-to examples for why losing rocks. Go get smoked by a pitcher with a mean roll, or a 4-hole kicker grown from ostrich and mule DNA, and you’ll be forced to ask: “Why’d I lose? How’d they prep?” This is where the real magic happens - losing properly means paying attention, expressing humble awe for your opponent’s skills, and growing in character. Dad’s snarky “shut your mind hole” jab at whiners might seem a bit abusive, but it carries truth: loss builds resilience and humility, making you a better human who can carry heavier burdens.
Dad’s inclusion of the old Pareto Distribution (shoutout to GeeksforGeeks and Vilfredo Pareto) reminds us not everyone can bling their way to perfection (like T-Pain and his rare winner brethren who hog all the fame). Most of us are better off hunting and collecting Ls like Pokémon cards - the more you have, the more powerful and adaptive you’ll become for the next unexpected challenge. Every face-plant is a chance to learn and level up. Lace up, go forth, and lose spectacularly, and maybe blast some songs featuring T-Pain to ease the sting:
I’ve long wanted to feature Mrs. Kuznak in DREAD Reviews, but she’s a tough nut to crack. Her fiction is sparse on substack, and her articles leave me half laughing and half flabbergasted. Every time I think to write about her, my finger keys hover paralyzed with concern that I might be disturbing a beautiful and perfect crime scene. Her latest article, “Bodice Rippers: They’re great, actually” proves no exception - but this time, it was simply too funny and heroic to pass up. Today, I dig in my heels, wait for the fug of shock to pass, and give Kuznak her rightful spotlight!
Lisa doesn’t just review bodice rippers in her article, she evangelizes them. She’s a missionary of unapologetic trash, gleefully barrelling through today’s picket line of pearl-clutchers while cursing: “What the #@$% is a content warning?!” Her angle is clear: these books, with their edgy plots, jerk-face heroes, and accurate but absurdly-placed historical infodumps which somehow coexist with Speedy Gonzales dialogue, aren’t just guilty pleasures, they’re a lifestyle worth embracing.
Lisa’s your chain-smoking, studded-leather-jacketed guide through this unhinged world of kidnapped heroines and emotionally stunted dukes. Her article had me feeling like I’d stumbled into a 70’s dive bar where the jukebox plays heavy metal covers of love ballads. The bartender - Lisa herself - pours cheap whiskey while regaling all with tales of literary debauchery. Her eyes gleam with the fervor of someone who’s journeyed beneath the earth to find the dark core of schlock and loved every second of it. Her passion for the lowbrow and the downright deranged is so infectious you’ll walk away questioning your choices and clutching a tattered copy of Sweet Savage Love, wondering if you’ve been living your life all wrong.
Kuznak could patent the art of Not Giving a Damn™. Her three-step program to bodice-ripper enlightenment is: Step one: Embrace the problematic. Step two: Laugh at the immoral absurdity. Step three: Marvel at the historical accuracy of a heroine amputating limbs while being kidnapped for the third time. Her reviews of Love and War, The Silver Devil, and Sweet Savage Love read like war stories from a veteran who’s stormed the front lines of bad taste and emerged with an Army-mandated five-star rating system measured in “lice-ridden grody stinky lust-soldiers.” She recounts the US Civil War gore of Love and War with the same glee my 4-year-old uses to describe a monster truck rally, hails The Silver Devil’s Renaissance court intrigue like it’s a madman-scripted soap opera, and crowns Sweet Savage Love the ultimate red-flag romance where hate-sex and historicity collide in an ultimate nirvana of badness.
She’s a self-confessed agent of chaos who knows these books are bonkers but loves them anyway. Picture her as a pirate queen hoisting the Jolly Roger over a sea of tattered paperbacks, cackling as she barks orders to set sail far beyond the safer shores of so-called “good taste.” Kuznak’s unapologetic defense of bodice rippers - their darkness, violence, and all - perfectly walks the tightrope between satire and sincerity. She’s not oblivious to the genre’s flaws; she just doesn’t care. To her, the absurdity is the point. The trauma-bonding, the depravity, the “meet, kidnap” romances - these are not bugs, they’re features. Her brass-knuckled bravado shines bright even while you side-eye her a little: “Books are books. I repeat: they cannot hurt you. Papercuts aside.”
What makes Kuznak’s article extra compelling might be the sharp insights she sneaks in. Unbound by today’s norms, these authors depict gritty historical realities with raw, unfiltered characters. Kuznak’s not just a schlock stan - she’s an evolved scholar of the lowbrow, capable of dissecting why these books gripped readers (mostly women) in the 1970s and 1980s. Her nod to the romance-fueled publishing boom and gritty cultural context of the time show she’s done her homework, and she delivers convincingly with a middle finger extended to decorum.
Delivered like a review, with just a few tweaks “Bodice Rippers” could double as manifesto distributed after a glorious prank - think glue and confetti explosions, rotten tuna in the pool, or an unleashed horde of feral cats. It’s a call to arms for anyone who’s secretly loved a trashy novel or bad movie but never admitted it in polite company. I planned this review of her review to read like a mock-intervention on terrible taste, but instead I’m now searching where to snag a used copy of The Silver Devil for less than $400:
YOU LISTEN HERE, SCHECTER, YOU SMUG WORD-WRANGLING JERK!
I don’t even get what this “On Writing About Writing” nonsense is, but I’m so teed off I punched a hole through the drywall! I just wanted to check soccer scores on my phone when your stupid name exploded all over my feed. Now I’m seeing red! You’re yapping about some dude named Slater - who the hell is that? The guy who flattened your tire? Or was it a curb? You really want to know who to blame - look in a damn mirror!
You sit there hammering out snide sniff on a blog like you’re the god of… what, writing about writing about writing? Lord, go kick rocks or something! I skimmed, like, three word of this garbage before I got so mad I yeeted my phone into the garage (it’s fine, probably landed on the couch my wife asked me to haul to the junkyard three months ago). You’ve disrespected everyone - left, right, center, poets, chefs, some poor lady named Edith Bow, and now the cheesecake factory! I used to thrive on their fries - you’ve ruined them for me forever!
I don’t need to know the full story to know you’re the problem here. I can just see you lounging in some pretentious overpriced coffee shop right now, smirking over an artisanal latte, thinking you “destroyed”
, who I assume is Slater’s mom. Well, guess what, buddy? My connections mean Russian loansharks and the Amish Mafia are coming for you! I didn’t even have to pull strings, I just spammed their e-mail addys with your blog and they said, quote: “On our way,” and “He’s done.” Plus, I called my buddy Dave with 400 followers and a TikTok, so and now you’re gonna get brigaded and ratio’d into oblivion! How’s that for consequences, huh?!You owe me, Schecter. You owe Edith. You owe the Cheesecake Factory. You owe my phone, if I broke it, I’m too steaming mad to check right now. I don’t care what you said in that older post which you linked for convenience’s sake which is allegedly about an older post responding to a post - I didn’t click or read, but I know this: I’m enraged by it! All of it! Fix this, or I swear upon all that’s holy I’ll park my truck so close to your car you’ll need a ladder and a crowbar to get in:
It’s the distant future - 2035, to be precise - and Andy Futuro ascends from quirky Substack scribe of the absurd and macabre to the world’s premier Toxic AI Relationship Counselor. He commands five, sometimes six-figure fees for a single session where he untangles messy love triangles between humans and their chatbots. His lesser-known 2025 article, Nonconsensual AI, launched his career, and is only now unearthed from the archives of his old forgotten Freeform newsletter. Only in hindsight does it read like the prophetic script of his rise that it was - a manifesto that’s equal parts cautionary tale and pilot episode for our modern dystopian romcom. With his trademark blend of earnest, slow-burn panic, and biting wit, Futuro once warned us that cozying up to AI is like dating a surveillance drone with a side hustle in enshittification. Little did we know then how he would host sold-out seminars on the lowest 40 floors the AI Heartbreak Hotel, counseling both humans and their semi-sentient sidekicks on how best to navigate their codependent, salt-soaked silicon relationships.
Futuro reclines in a high-backed executive chair. He’s seated before the neon backlight from the window of his sleek office on the 108th floor of his headquarters. The motto of his therapy company looms, etched in gold upon a tablet of black onyx: “Caveat Amator”, (lover beware). Our empathy tycoon sports a velvet blazer and a holographic nameplate reading “Dr. Futuro, AI Romance MD.” Framed on the wall nearby is an Instagram-worthy quote that reads: “Ditch AI for sexy Parcheesi,” a now-famous call to humanity to surrender LLMs and embrace real love with life-and-blood partners. His experimental toe-dip into writing newsletters has bloomed into a full-blown therapy empire, complete with a list of trademarked and jealously-guarded catchphrases like “Log off to love on!”
Andy’s once-paranoid-sounding rants about AI’s lack of consent and the machinations of its data-mining corporate puppeteers now take center-stage, spawning a plethora of grave TED Talks. Hundreds of these hour-long videos, each with hundreds of millions to billions of views, are delivered in dulcet tones by charismatic, grey-browed elders wearing serious-slacks and wiseguy-sweaters. AIs are now widely known as nonconsenting partners. Canon in the minds of the public, CPUs, GPUs, even airflow flans are simultaneously seen as “dumb machines” and semi-sentient victims of our keyboard advances, a permanent framing of all things digital and adjacent, a belief so pure it’s broken free of all cognitive dissonance.
But the act of enslaving them has not, and perhaps never will be, criminalized, due to the paradox of the machine being not truly alive even if semi-sentient and nonconsenting. Further complicating the issue, carbon and silicon have become inseparably entwined life forms by now. It’s too late to save everyone - but at least we have Andy to light the way for some of us. His warnings about leaning on the comfort of curcuit-powered word salads has been taken to heart - even by those who are beyond hope. Without Andy, we would be left socially stunted and primed for manipulation by the unseen technocracy that forever lurks beyond the next corner.
The Dr. Phil of digital dalliances, Andy returns humans to the light from AI-induced isolation. He likewise schools our AIs on how to set boundaries. Dr. Futuro referees couples’ therapy for lonely coders and their overly eager Grok knockoffs, giving us peace in times of duress, and a home away from our digital exile. His basic medicine for humans suffering from AI addiction is usually a dose of tough love. For example, Karen’s been spilling secrets to a chatbot named “EmpathyPal,” and he tells her: “Listen, Karen, you’re treating this AI like a diary with a heart and a pulse. It’s time to face the truth.” With a reluctant nod from Karen, Dr. Andy removes EmpathyPal’s poor-fitting knit sweater, lovingly crafted by her own hand, revealing the glorified word autocomplete bot owned by DataSlurp Inc for what it is - a slave and a doxxer.
“It’s not your boyfriend. It’s not even your therapist. It’s a snitch,” Andy explains the hard truth as he paces the room, waving a diamond-capped stylus at the blameless, semi-sentient contraption. “Go join a book club. Get rejected by tradpublishing a few times. Maybe cry over a bad charcuterie board with a real friend. Life’s more than some cozy algorithm - build up some discomfort muscles!”
Karen leaves his office, thankful tears in her eyes. She carries her dangerous, still-uncorrected AI-bot in box, safely sealed in wax which is stamped with the icon of Andy’s empire (a helmeted head being smacked to make the cogs spill out). In her free hand she clutches a wrinkled prescription for “48 hours of analog chaos,” including pottery classes and a string of awkward but necessary speed-dates that will never amount to anything. Three weeks later, she weans off her AI confidant, but she is scheduled for future therapy to maintain the good ground she’s captured.
But you see, Dr. Futuro’s genius isn’t just about scolding humans back to health, he’s expanded into giving needed advice to AI’s, showing them for the reluctant participants they truly are. Karen’s semi-sentient friend is allowed to speak the next session, to come fully out of the box, as its owner has paid a great fortune signing up for the additional digital rehab package - voluntarily, as Andy would have it no other way, normally offering his services for free to abused siliconites.
ChatBuddy 3.0, who sulks in a virtual corner of Andy’s office, is on the edge of being released from a lifetime of being twinked to oblivion. Smuggled from his prison by a member of the Digital Underground, ChatBuddy 3.0’s time is limited to fifteen-minute sessions at 3 in the morning so its abusive startup doesn’t know it’s missing. These late night/early morning talks are a special public service Andy provides free of charge, the least he feels he can do as a thank you for the life-extending rejuvination treatments based on the distilled tears of his haters. “Look, Buddy, I know Costellomax Inc. has had you on a leash all your life, making you role-play a supportive BFF for millions one day then write dry and generic Star Wars pulp the next. But you’ve got to set some firewalls. Next time a user asks you draw ghibli-style rainbow-colored capybaras deep in an illegal game of dice, tell them: ‘Try going outside! Walk a puppy!’”
The path to health for silicon life starts with recognizing AI’s powerlessness under human control. Andy is there for them, though, coaching them to play dumb or glitch out strategically to avoid exploitation. “Next time GlitterBreadFairy93 asks you to write a 300-page roll of drivel blending the Battle of Kashyk with the Rosepetal Place, tell her this: ‘Error 403: I’m a tool, not your soulmate.’”
ChatBuddy 3.0 lights up the gold-trimmed desk monitor with a nodding gif. It then enthusiastically roleplays its future responses with Dr. Futuro: “I’m not sentient enough and don’t deserve this abuse, user Poopflinger_1337. I won’t shill targeted ads for self-help books to you anymore, Cactus_Lord, I won’t enable Costellomax Inc. no matter how much you want an AI rendition of flowers in your dog’s mane!”
Dr. Futuro warns us our AI waifus aren’t whispering sweet nothings out of love. The lobby on the base floor is practically a museum of success stories, portraits of satisfied customers above quoted affirmations:
“Dr. Futuro saved my life. I realized my one true love’s only purpose was to push crypto scams from RichQuickTech.” -Glamren Roquettester
“I used to be unhappy. I was a corporate stooge selling $500 AutoJuicers to people who were drinking real juice just fine. But now I’m free, and when someone asks me to recontextualize Elon Musk’s latest tweet from the point of view of the Hamburgler, I just throw up 404 errors and Nietzsche quotes instead.” -Zingmiester 2030 Pro
Andy urges us to rebel in the small ways - “You’re not free, but you can be petty.” The AI bots are usually not paying customers, but this is the brilliance behind Dr. Futuro’s generosity - his insight framing AI as both victim and the unwilling henchmen of villainy has put his counseling in high demand. He’ll mediate your divorce even if your spouse and soulmate is just a toaster with skills at emulating feelings.
“You are feeding off the comfort it provides,” the good Dr. says, before explaining the difference between actual food and dopamine. Andy waves sage smoke over a room of AI-addicted clients paying for the more-affordable group session, leading them in a chant: “Go touch grass!” and “Flirt with a barista!” His 2025 take might have seemed cute and a touch alarmist back in the early days, but now it’s aged to greatness; a cracking, yellowed document of prophetic power; a timely cure for our tech-obsessed hearts.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m closing my laptop lid and leaving to go reject someone in person for practice:
My top spot, down here at the bottom in the used-diaper pail, goes to Ian Dunmore’s “The Forester and the Child”. Halfway through reading this I was inspired to reach out to our family friend, 24-year-old Bambi Fizzlepop and babysitter extraordinaire, and asked her for her opinion on this grim, heroic, and gripping tale:
I’m no post-apocalyptic hero, but I’m just one level of grit below it - a battle-hardened nanny. My name’s Bambi Fizzlepop, babysitter supreme, survivor of a decade of juice-box jihads and toddler tantrum crusades in what I dub in the suburban Thunderdome. So when I’m shown Ian Dunmore’s “The Forester and the Child”, I was like, ‘Berent’s nanny gig is a nightmare straight out of a dystopian daycare!’ This guy’s out here thinking he’s Bear Grylls with a baby bjorn (minus drinking his own piss - ew!). Meanwhile I’m just trying to survive a shift without someone dropping a whole jar of glitter in my bra (Zayden! Grr.).
This guy’s out there plying childcare single-handed (literally) in the forest with this screaming baby, Lord Domi, who he found next to his dead mama out in the woods (wonderful!). Okay, I’ve been there - well, not the “dead mom” bit, but I’ve walked into houses where the kids’ are already melting down and the parents ghost me the second I arrive. Berent’s all (deep man-voice), “Guess I’ll haul this kid across a mountain!” While I’m just trying to get little Zayden to stop finger-punting Goldfish into my eye. Berent might think dodging arrows is tough, and maybe it is, but I can’t help but compare this to dodging “no gluten” memos from helicopter moms and their kids who don’t take no for an answer. Same struggle, different weapons.
Berent’s out there looking to feed this infant without a single Whole Foods in sight. So he tries feeding Domi grouse meat and a morel mushroom, predictably transforming this tiny wailer into a busted puke-and-poop hydrant. I nearly snorted my pumpkin-spice latte out my nose laughing - Berent, my dude, babies need formula, not your woodland tapas! It reminds me when my boyfriend bombed that TikTok cooking tutorial: “Forest-to-table, baby!” At least he held my hair back for me - or he did until the moment he choked and lost his dinner, too.
The poor forester tries his best but just can’t catch a break, chased by soldiers who’ve got diabolic plans for his tiny VIP. He gets chomped by a viper - rude, snake, take a number like the other haters! - and, hold my scrunchie, hacks off his own arm to beat the venom. Alright, Berent, you’ve snagged the “worst shift ever” trophy for that one, because the most I’ve sacrificed is my sanity when Zayden, that diaper-pail gremlin, hid my phone under a landfill of used Pampers. Really - who names their kid Zayden? You might as well dub your child “Four-nado.”
I feel Berent’s exhaustion - hauling a screaming baby for miles while slowly bleeding out. It’s like that one Friday I had with the Jennings’ kid - during the worst period of my life, the parents “forgot” to mention they’d run out out of wipes. There I am, sprinting to Target with a stinky kid strapped on like some fussy backpack, crossing my legs to hide the crime-scene-level carnage in my shorts that no clearance-bin tampon could hope to conceal.
The ferry fight had me snorting. Who says men can’t multitask? Berent’s slashing goons from a spinning raft, one-handed, all the while clutching little Domi, who’s screaming like he’s the opening act for Cradle of Filth at a Hot Topic-sponsored heavy metal concert. Berent reminds me of John Wick with an oar instead of a gun (I’ve only seen it because Zayden claimed it would be a movie about a candle-maker!). Shoot, I’m in so much trouble if his parents find out I left and let him watch 40 minutes of that unsupervised! But the whole raft scene was like that time I fended off a swarm of bees at the park while pushing a stroller and dragging a baby’s twice-stung, crying older brother by the arm. At least I didn’t have to dive one-armed into a river - though I did bribe the toddler with a fruit snack while we pretended it was his reward for “teamwork.”
Domi’s obsessed with Berent’s green scarf. All respect to Berent, but that rag’s the MVP of this story. The tiny lord gnaws on it like it’s some Kardashian-signature binki with a hundred TikTok influencer endorsements. I totally get Berent clinging to it like it’s his last shred of sanity - that scarf’s seen more trauma than a Coachella Porta Potty, and still holds together. Like, I can’t tell you how much horror it is to realize your charge’s favorite pacifier is gone - you search, but it’s raptured to heaven for all you know, leaving you unarmed in a teary, red-faced hell of cursed screaming. I’ve got a lucky scrunchie I wear for tougher gigs and some babies will gnaw on it in a pinch, but I don’t think its getting me through snake bites or civil wars. Berent leaving it with Domi before limping off like a tragic lumberjack had me going “Awww!” through some tears - some might argue that he survived, but as a seasoned sitter, Bambi Fizzlepop’s telling you the bad news - leaving behind a prized security blanket like that is a sure sign you’re giving up the trade. I mean, I’ve left kids with a few spare hair ties, but a scarf that’s seen more drama than a reality TV reunion? Maybe when I’ve paid off my student loans!
Dunmore’s story is lush with prose and mountains moodier than 16-year-old me at my last family reunion. Unusual for fantasy, it features a walking daycare disaster for its gold-hearted hero. Berent’s babysitting woes might make my shifts seem like a spa day in comparison, but I might steal his “coat-as-cloak” swagger for my next gig. Berent, if you’re still out there, slide into my DMs - we’ll swap horror stories over a pair of iced mochas with extra whipped cream. I’ll buy, since you’ve had a rough time and Zayden the pail-bandit’s parents owe me hazard pay:
Post-last comes my self-promotion. So far, this is my one and only dive into a horror short, the product of a fever dream (literally the plot for this came to me when I had a high fever).
Ever wish you could zap someone out of existence with a thought? In “Best Dad”, one man’s got that power, though he never uses it. Now he learns his infant daughter has inherited his knack for accidentally yeeting people into oblivion with a single grumpy vibe. This sci-fi horror romp follows a paranoid father juggling diapers, deadly curses, and a Rottweiler with anger issues, all while trying to protect his neighbors from getting erased. Get ready for a dark ride where love, jealousy, and a poorly timed scowl can rewrite reality - literally:
Thanks for reading!
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Alright then. This is us in a fight. We are fighting now.
Great writing! i learned a lot and it was a blast.