So, season 3 is coming! Which, first of all, yay!! I'm really excited! Not just because I want to see more Bertie, but also I really love this show and there clearly is potential for a third season. But I'm also a bit nervous because I don't know if my read on the characters is at all the same as the showrunner's.

It's this description that has me nervous: ” - shadows from the past begin to re-emerge threatening both her happiness and her reputation. As Gemma fights to protect those she loves and expose whoever’s intent on hurting her, will she be able to put the past to bed, dispense justice, and claim the future she deserves, before it is too late?”

Because to me that sounds like it's Simon who's again intent on hurting her and threatening her happiness, and, idk, maybe I'm hopelessly naive (or blinded by my love for the actor) but I really thought the show could go someplace else with his character. I mean the Simon at the end of S2 is not the same Simon as in the beginning of S2. He took some accountability (finally) and I saw some hope for an uneasy truce between him and Gemma. I don't even know where I see him going forward exactly, there's many ways their characters could develop after S2, but if it's the same warfare ten years later then yeah, I'm a bit disappointed.

Of course, it could be misdirection and the person wanting to hurt her is somebody else, but then idk who that could be.

Can people PLEASE let agender/genderless characters be genderless? Without assigning them some mandatory association with masculinity or femininity?

Same thing happened with Frisk, where people looked at a nonbinary character and went "oh, this is a free space for me to assign this character whatever gender I choose :) " but it's much worse with Murderbot bc the character is much more explicitly genderless.

I'm guessing people think "oh, the bookstore will just sell that book to someone else, they don't actually lose any money." Perhaps with the addendum of "they're not technically losing my purchase, since I wouldn't have really bought the book."

There are multiple reasons this doesn't work.

First, bookstores decide how many books to order based on how many have sold recently.

These days, reorders can be submitted and shipped very quickly, while space and funds are at a premium, and the number of available titles is massive. So it's more cost effective to buy just a couple copies of most books and reorder when 1-2 of them sell.

This means that by the time you return your book, the bookstore may have already ordered more copies, expecting that if your copy sold, there must be enough demand for more. (Especially if it's a new release.)

But in smaller stores especially, a lot of books may ultimately only sell a couple copies, because the number of titles publishing every year is so huge. So the bookstore could very easily end up with additional copies of the book you returned that don't sell, because your purchase signaled a demand that doesn't exist. (Since, you know, you weren't *actually* willing to pay for the book.)

And what happens to those copies if they don't sell? The bookstore can usually return books to their publishers and receive credit towards future orders. But it's vital to note that this doesn't make the store any money, just helps cover its losses. And it still costs the store more than if they hadn't bought that book!

That last piece is crucial. Yes, the bookstore typically gets credited 100% of what they paid the publisher for the book they return. But the bookstore usually still pays the cost of shipping on the returns (books are heavy!), and there are significant labor costs involved in selecting, sorting, and packing books for return.