Hyperfixation continues our book club moment with Cal's favorite book Song of Achilles from 2011. These Ancient Greek gay boys are horny and fighting in the Trojan War. Cal and Bret know a lot about The Iliad and Marika was a lesbian about the Troy movie from 2004.

Episode We Mentioned:
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 1
Kaos
A Day of Fallen Night
Castlevania: Nocturne Season 1
Castlevania: Nocturne Season 2
A Strange and Stubborn an Endurance
Baldur's Gate 3
Interview with the Vampire
Castlevania: The Netflix Series

The gang talks about the new season of Castlevania: Nocturne. Our hero team is mostly split, but the animation is amazing, Maria gets multiple dads, our straights get together, and we talk a lot about Olrox and Mizrak despite their incredibly limited screen time.

Episode We Mentioned:
Castlevania: Nocturne Season 1
Castlevania: The Netflix Series
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Interview with the Vampire
Mutant May: Marauders (2019), to get any of Marika's X-men references

Marika finally makes the gang talk about The Priory of the Orange Tree, the first Roots of Chaos series book by Samantha Shannon but the second one the gang's read. The excellent world building continues. There's an old sad gay man, queer women Marika are obsessed with, and another ace/aro character.

TW: depression, alcoholism, miscarriages, and mentions of suicide

Episodes We Mention:
A Day of Fallen Night
Castlevania Nocturne: Season 1
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Interview with the Vampire
Fallout: The Amazon Series

Cal makes the Hyperfixation gang talk about A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows from 2022, a fantasy romance with the most trigger warnings. Marika and Bret find the audiobook bad, there is a rather violent rape rather early on, but eventually the books gets to good queer world building and fun fanfic troupes.

Trigger Warning: Rape, sexual assault, and suicidal ideations

Episodes We Mention:
X-Men: Marauders (2019)
A Day of Fallen of Night
Interview with the Vampire
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire
Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Ep. 1-4
Castlevania: Nocturne Season 1

After mentioning The Priory of the Orange Tree about 100 times, Marika makes the gang talk about A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon, the other Roots of Chaos series book. We are here, we are queer, we are raising kids, and we are fighting wyrms. There are numerous sapphics, an ace/aro character, and some background gay bois.

Episodes We Mention:
Fallout: The Amazon Series
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Baldur's Gate 3: The Storytelling
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2 Part 2
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 3 (Part 2 of 4)

The gang talks about Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, the tie-in book for Inquisition that also includes a lot of the lore that appears in Veilguard. This series is good at morally grey characters and interesting lesbians. Celene might be the average mainstream American Democrat at the moment and it makes all of us sad.

MAJOR spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard (because Bret wouldn't shut up).

Episodes We Mention:
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Age: Redemption and Absolution
Mutant May: Marauders (2019)
Andor: The Season One Finale
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2 Part 2
Baldur's Gate 3: The Storytelling

The Hyperfixation gang returns to Xena for some terrible ancient Chinese mysticism, but also a lot of very textual queerness in the two-parter "The Debt." Marika loves these episodes and Lao Ma despite all these problems. Cal is uncomfortable with the Asian mysticism and Bret had finally deiced to stop caring about history because it's Xena.

Episodes We Mention:
Dragon Age: Redemption and Absolution
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 3 Part 1 (of 4)
Queerness in Xena: Warrior Princess Season 1 (Our first Xena episode)
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights

The wine appears, Cal's outline wanes, the family devolves, and chaos reigns! We talk about Kaos, the star-filled, pretty queer, already cancelled Netflix show that you probably haven't watched. It's good, but it would have been much better with other seasons.

Episodes We Mentioned:
The Sandman: The Netflix Series (Recorded before any allegations came to light)
Queerness in Xena Warrior Princess: Season One
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Carmilla: The Web Series
Castlevania: The Netflix Series
Interview with the Vampire
Chapter Ten: The Passenger