I Read Something Bad

Afleveringen

1. 031 Katabasis with Dr. Beth Felker Jones

   4 september 2026 · 40 min

   Afspelen
   Today we’ve got Dr. Beth Felker Jones joining us to dig into R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, a dark academia descent into literal hell that doubles as a devastating portrait of PhD formation, academic abuse, and what it costs to believe you’re only a mind. Lees meer

   Topics Covered:

   * The academic nightmare that’s apparently happened in real life to one of us (and no, we’re not okay)

   * How to survive an institution that wants to eat you alive—without becoming someone you don’t recognize

   * Alice is proud she forgets to eat, and we need to talk about what that says about all of us

   * Why the people who most want to escape their bodies are the ones whose bodies the world refuses to love

   * Christianity is supposed to be the most body-affirming religion on earth, so what happened?

   * John Piper will read your book but won’t let you teach him, and we finally figured out why

   * What happens when shame curdles into revenge and ruins the good thing right in front of you

   * You can be queen of hell and still be in hell—plus the ways we do this to ourselves every single day

   * The line about context that made us all scream about preachers who skip the homework

   * The most romantic thing Peter does isn’t romantic at all, and it wrecked us

   📚🔥💀

   Timestamps:02:00 Academic Abuse and the Nightmare of Recommendation Letters07:00 Impossible Standards and the Myth That Grinding Equals Worth09:00 Alice’s Gnostic Pride in Transcending Bodily Need12:00 Gnosticism in Evangelical Theology and Fear of Embodiment18:00 Harassment, Shame, and How It Twists Into Revenge25:00 Why Katabasis Lands Differently Than Dante’s Inferno27:00 Context Matters: Close Reading vs Making It Mean Whatever34:00 Peter Witnesses Instead of Fixing36:00 Takeaways: Loving Jesus More After Reading About Hell

   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit irsbpodcast.substack.com

2. 030 The Escapism Episode: Why Reading Romance Isn't the Real Issue

   8 mei 2026 · 58 min

   Afspelen
   Today your matron saints of spice are tackling the topic of escapism—because apparently reading our silly little books is unhealthy coping, but planning to literally escape all worldly suffering via the Rapture is fine and normal theology. We’re unpacking how escapism is actually a natural human response to systemic oppression (not just a character flaw) and why the most prevalent form of escapism is doomscrolling social media (not romance novels). Lees meer

   Topics Covered:

   * Escapism as a natural survival strategy and self-regulation tool—not just an individual coping mechanism

   * When escapism is restorative versus harmful

   * The most prevalent form of escapism in our culture

   * How we’re encouraged to escape into culturally appropriate things that get a check mark even though they’re equally or more harmful than books

   * The wild irony of people upset at us escaping for an hour a day into books while they’re theologically planning to escape all horrors forever via dispensationalist Rapture theology

   * Why 30-second rage-bait and Christian aesthetic scrolling are both escapism

   * How the “in it not of it” mentality taken to extremes creates homeschool cult bubbles that escape the world by refusing to engage neighbors or integrate with the broader church

   * Jeremiah 29 as the balance of hopeful future vision paired with embodied presence now

   * Why institutions don’t want to give up spiritual authority and teach discernment

   * The goal is creating church spaces safe enough that people don’t need to escape from them instead of creating harmful hierarchies that generate the escape loop then demonize the escaping

   If escapism doesn’t lead to embodiment, it’s not doing you favors. 📚🌱

   Timestamps:

   02:00 Escapism as Natural Survival Strategy vs Character Flaw

   05:00 Culturally Appropriate Escapism: Work, Family, Church Service

   08:00 Social Media Scrolling Is the Most Prevalent Escapism

   11:00 Passive Consumption and the Death of Engagement Online

   14:00 How Platforms Keep Us …

3. 029 Quicksilver by Callie Hart

   24 april 2026 · 35 min

   Afspelen
   Today we’re diving into Callie Hart’s Quicksilver. Lees meer

   Topics Covered:

   * Why Zilvaren’s city structure is secretly showing us exactly how power keeps us fighting each other instead of the real problem

   * That Artemis astronaut said WHAT about Earth right before going dark for 40 minutes—and how it connects to fantasy城 cities

   * The theological move fantasy authors can pull that nonfiction writers can’t touch (and why it matters for how we see power)

   * Madra’s quicksilver addiction and why protecting yourself at everyone else’s expense always ends in catastrophic instability

   * The billionaire problem isn’t what you think—and why your individual experience is lying to you about the actual issue

   * Our FMC is just trying to get water and that’s exactly why we should be paying attention to her

   * How to build power structures that don’t turn you into the villain (spoiler: “we’ve always done it this way” is a trap)

   * Kingfisher’s quicksilver is destroying him from the inside and it’s the perfect metaphor for the hidden cost of power nobody talks about

   * Why an alchemist FMC hits different than another battle warrior—plus the moment the quicksilver asked for a song and we all cried

   Timestamps:

   02:00 Zilvaren’s Wheel Structure: Separate Wards, Same Suffering

   04:00 Astronaut’s Message: We’re All on One Planet

   06:00 Fantasy World-Building as Theological Exercise

   08:00 Othering and Physical Barriers Highlighting Emotional Ones

   10:00 Madra’s Hoarded Quicksilver and Systemic Power Exploitation

   12:00 Individualism vs Collectivism: Looking Beyond Our Experience

   15:00 Paying Attention to the Margins: Who’s Struggling for Water?

   16:00 The Desire to Live Forever and Power That Won’t Let Go

   18:00 Building Structures That Pass Down vs Clinging to Control

   20:00 Economic Instability When Power Gets Too Consolidated

   22:00 What Happens in People’s Brains When They Get That Much Power

   25:00 Kingfisher’s Quicksilver: The Physical Cost of Unwanted Power

   27:00 Why the Hero Be…

4. 028 FMCs of the Bible: Mary Magdalene

   3 april 2026 · 41 min

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   Today we’re diving into Mary Magdalene—the biblical FMC who got completely wrecked by centuries of patriarchal mythmaking that turned her from “apostle to the apostles” into either a prostitute or Jesus’s secret lover. Lees meer

   Topics Covered:

   * How we got the myth that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or sexually sinful woman

   * How conflating all the Marys (Mary of Bethany, Mary mother of Jesus, the sinner woman) into one person significantly reduces Jesus’s interactions with women in Scripture

   * The discovery that might make Mary Magadalene a parallel to Peter the Rock

   * Why Mary wasn’t Plan B when the boys were hiding scared—Jesus chose her specifically to be the first witness and first apostle, which matters theologically

   * The problem with readily accepting Paul’s apostleship while dismissing Mary’s

   * Why pastors skip over Mary entirely on Easter Sunday to get to the punchline about John being the fastest disciple

   * Jesus and Mary’s sibling relationship as a model for devotion without sexualization, and how purity culture destroyed our ability to have close platonic friendships

   * Why spiritual siblinghood (brothers and sisters) is the New Testament’s favorite term for disciples

   Timestamps:

   02:00 The Prostitute Myth: How Pope Gregory Wrecked Mary’s Story

   05:00 Conflating All the Marys Reduces Jesus’s Interactions with Women

   08:00 Jesus Christ Superstar and Pop Culture Mary Mythmaking

   10:00 What We Should Actually Remember About Mary Magdalene

   12:00 Mary Wasn’t Plan B—Jesus Chose Her Specifically

   14:00 Mary Identifies Jesus as Gardener: Eden Parallels and Reversal

   17:00 Mary the Tower, Not Mary from Magdala

   19:00 What If the Church Had Embraced Both Tower and Rock?

   21:00 Why We Accept Men’s Certainty but Question Women’s Authority

   23:00 Pastors Skip Mary to Get to “John Is the Fastest” Punchline

   26:00 Looking With Mary, Not At Mary—She Points to Jesus

   27:00 The Women Stayed at the Cross When the Men Ran Away

   29:00 Jesus and Mary’s Sibling Relationsh…

5. 027 The Legacy Series by Melissa K. Roehrich (Book 4)

   21 maart 2026 · 42 min

   Afspelen
   Today we’re wrapping up Melissa K. Roehrich’s Legacy series with Dawn of Chaos and Fury. Lees meer

   We’re unpacking how churches structure everything around nuclear families to everyone’s detriment, why Jesus had a cool aunt at the cross and you should aspire to be one too, and how Eviana’s arc is the most complex character development in the whole series even though we wanted to hate her. Oh AND we get to watch powerful people voluntarily give up their power for the greater good instead of hoarding it like real-world billionaires. The true fantasy!

   Topics Covered:

   * Why Tessa choosing childlessness to end the curse is a big deal in purity culture, and how evangelical spaces have no idea what to do with married couples who don’t have kids

   * How expectations around motherhood hurt ALL women—not just the childless ones, but also mothers who are conditioned not to ask for help and end up isolated with their kids

   * Eviana’s redemption arc as the best character development in the series—she didn’t get to raise her daughter but still did superior mothering by ensuring Priya would be free from abuse

   * Why “she’s too much for one person” isn’t the feminist win it pretends to be when she never learns autonomy or how to harmonize her own chaos without men reigning her in

   * The revolutionary moment when all the leaders voluntarily pool their power and give it away (because watching people share power for the greater good is the actual fantasy here)

   * How quiet activism was happening all along in these kingdoms from the bottom up before they had the ability to go top-down, and why performing goodness isn’t the same as doing the work

   Timestamps:

   02:00 Tessa’s Childlessness Choice and Breaking Generational Curses

   04:00 Being Child-Free by Choice in Evangelical Spaces

   08:00 How Nuclear Family Structure Hurts All Women

   11:00 Jesus Had a Cool Aunt and So Should You

   13:00 There Are No Levels in Womanhood (The Lie We Fight)

   16:00 Chosen Family and Mary’s New Support System

   18:00…

6. 026 Why is Christian Art So Bad?

   6 februari 2026 · 53 min

   Afspelen
   Today your Matron Saints of Spice are tackling the ever-controversial question of why so much Christian art feels thin, didactic, and aesthetically weak—and just plain BAD. Lees meer

   We’re getting real about how flattening the Bible into surface-level application points has destroyed our capacity to engage layers in any medium, why making Ruth and Boaz into a love story completely misses the point about welcoming the stranger, and how capitalism turned humans into resources to be used up—which means our entire identity got wrapped up in usefulness instead of Imago Dei.

   Topics Covered:

   * The definition of good art as opening perception and making room for the reader versus bad art that reduces experience to propaganda with predetermined conclusions

   * Why Christian art often fails the hospitality test—inviting someone over just to lecture them about what to believe instead of offering actual coffee and conversation

   * Post-Reformation history of shifting from visual imagery (icons, stained glass) to language-only emphasis, and how the printing press made accessibility a priority that accidentally flattened everything

   * The Enlightenment’s need for certainty, empirical knowledge, and being on the same page—which bled into making messages crystal clear at the expense of mystery and layers

   * How “Facing the Giants” versus “Remember the Titans” shows the difference between heavy-handed Christian messaging and wrestling with justice/humanity through storytelling

   * Why Ruth and Boaz isn’t a romance about finding your person—it’s about Boaz depicting how Jesus welcomes strangers and provides for the vulnerable (Ruth said “where you go I will go” to NAOMI, people)

   * The collapse of context and layers in Bible reading, and how treating Scripture as flat application points instead of artistic literature kills our ability to engage depth anywhere else

   * How usefulness became our framework for existence instead of beauty, and why that’s devastating when your productivity disappea…

7. 025 The Legacy Series (Books 1-3) by Melissa K. Roehrich

   23 januari 2026 · 50 min

   Afspelen
   Power Corrupts, Patriarchy Polices, and Why We’re All Rooting for the Dragons Lees meer

   Today Kate, Liz, and Sarah are diving into their first dark romantasy series on the pod—Melissa K. Roehrich’s Legacy Series, books 1-3.

   We’re talking about source bonds as weaponized intimacy, how power systems crush imagination for anything better, and why literally every character is morally gray (so we’re all just rooting for the dogs and dragons instead). We’re unpacking Kate Mann’s framework for how patriarchy polices “good women” versus “bad women,” why Theon thinking he’s better than his dad while still locking Tessa in cellars is peak missing-the-point energy, and how the perversion of sacred bonds mirrors the way Christianity gets co-opted for power.

   Plus, we’re getting real about female rage, the cost of surviving versus thriving in broken systems, and why even the characters with the best intentions can’t dream past vengeance when the whole structure is designed to destroy agency.

   Topics Covered:

   * Why dark romantasy is different from romantasy—morally complex characters, darker themes, trigger warnings, and stories that wrestle with power and agency rather than giving you escapist happy endings

   * Kate Mann’s patriarchy framework: how misogyny polices women as “givers” (who support men) versus “takers” (who claim masculine perks), and how this entire dynamic plays out in the source bond system

   * Why you shouldn’t take something meant to be mutual intimate connection and weaponize it into forced servitude, proximity requirements, and power extraction without consent

   * Why benevolent hierarchy is still just hierarchy—you don’t get cookies for being less terrible

   * The grooming and policing that happens peer-to-peer because patriarchy’s biggest prop is women policing other women

   * Why we need people with perspective to interrupt normalized harm

   * How the system crushes imagination: even the “good guys” can only envision vengeance or incremental power shifts rather than …

8. 024 Wicked

   5 december 2025 · 52 min

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   Welcome back! Lees meer

   Today we have a special guest—Brooklyn Stephens from We Choose Welcome—to talk about Wicked and why the people who refuse to watch it because “witches = evil” are exactly the ones who need its lessons on propaganda, authoritarianism, and othering the most.

   We’re unpacking how Elphaba’s intimate knowing of the marginalized gave her empathy while Glinda’s proximity to power kept her climbing ladders, why social capital maximization is antithetical to the gospel, and how we’re all simultaneously Glinda in some rooms and Elphaba in others depending on who’s watching.

   About We Choose Welcome

   We Choose Welcome is a grassroots community seeking to mobilize and equip women of faith to build and cultivate a welcome movement from their tables at home to the halls of Congress. We hope to empower our community to take action for the vulnerable in both our personal lives and through advocating for just immigration policies.

   We are here to provide educational resources, action tools, and a supportive community for those seeking to take the next step in their advocacy for immigrants and refugees.

   Follow them on Instagram and Facebook to stay connected, or reach out to our team to learn more.

   Topics Covered:

   * Why people who reject Wicked for having magic are missing crucial lessons about propaganda and authoritarianism that feel startlingly relevant to current immigration enforcement tactics

   * How Elphaba’s position on the margins gave her intimate knowing and empathy for the othered, while Glinda’s proximity to power kept her focused on climbing toward Madame Morrible

   * The tension between optimism bias that blinds us to realistic steps versus compassion fatigue that burns us out—and how to sustain advocacy work for the long haul without stealing from yourself twice

   * Why we’re all both Glinda and Elphaba depending on which room we’re in, and how recognizing this complexity helps us hold compassion for ourselves and others on the journey

   * The cost of s…

9. 023 A Queen This Fierce and Deadly by Stacia Stark

   14 november 2025 · 51 min

   Afspelen
   Today your Matron Saints of Spice are wrapping up Stacia Stark’s Kingdom of Lies series with book four, where Prisca finally gets her crown and we’re learning that pre-disappointment is just stealing from yourself twice—a phrase that will now live rent-free in our heads forever. Lees meer

   We’re unpacking how defiant joy is fuel for sustainable resistance (not escapist toxic positivity), why social media has become a machine of pre-disappointment, and how building actual alliances for mutual flourishing is way harder than fantasy books make it look.

   Plus, we’re getting real about complex family dynamics when your relatives choose racism over relationship, and why understanding someone’s trauma doesn’t mean you have to excuse their harm or sacrifice your safety.

   Topics Covered:

   * How pre-disappointment means you’re just disappointed twice when the bad thing happens anyway

   * The difference between defiant joy as sustainable fuel versus weaponized joy as disconnection and distraction—because hospital chaplains need bread-baking Mondays to keep showing up for dying patients

   * How evangelical teenagers were taught that if you weren’t miserable enough you weren’t taking faith seriously, and why permission to feel joy is actually radical healing

   * Social media as a pre-disappointment machine where everyone races to ruin movies and break bad news first instead of spurring each other toward goodness

   * Stoking the fires of courage daily instead of waiting until you need bravery, because you can’t protect reserves forever—sometimes you have to exercise the muscles

   * The problem with political alliances that sacrificed nuance for oversimplified platforms

   * How sharing a vision for mutual flourishing matters more than agreeing on tactics, and why we’re bad at painting specific positive pictures because individualism makes fear easier to weaponize

   * Complex family dynamics when relatives choose harm over healing, and how understanding generational trauma doesn’t mean excusing cu…

10. 022 A Crown This Cold and Heavy by Stacia Stark

    31 oktober 2025 · 49 min

    Afspelen
    Today your matron saints of spice are diving into book three of Stacia Stark’s Kingdom of Lies series, where Prisca is processing trauma while everyone tells her she needs to grieve right now, and we’re realizing the pendulum on grief has swung from “suffer in silence” to “perform your sadness publicly or you’re doing it wrong.” Lees meer

    We’re unpacking how Regner’s sleeper cell spiders mirror church manipulation tactics, why spiritual gift assessments are basically just helping churches find free labor, and how the terror of “missing God’s will” kept us from making literally any decision in high school.

    Plus, we’re getting real about how trying to resurrect your dead boyfriend is the same kind of control as exploiting people through intimacy—even when your intentions are really good.

    Topics Covered:

    * Why delayed grief is valid and sometimes you literally cannot stop to process because you know it’ll take two weeks of couch-rotting and you don’t have two weeks right now

    * How Regner weaponizing intimacy through his spider network is exactly what happens in church spaces with “sweet girl coffee dates” and psychological warfare disguised as community

    * The uncomfortable parallel between exploiting people for evil ends versus trying to resurrect your mate for love—because control is control even when we think we’re justified

    * The wild difference between shoulder-tapping manipulation (”I need you to do this”) versus developmental invitation (”I see this gift in you, would you like to grow it?”)

    * How the hourglass amplifies Prisca’s gifts for good or bad, just like our own gifts can build up or tear down depending on how we wield them—and why fundamentalism demonizes tools instead of cultivating discernment

    * The pressure to choose your “one calling” and how God’s will actually has more to do with daily choices and character formation than finding the single perfect college/job/spouse

    * God as a God of restoration means you get to start over—resurrection life isn’t …

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