Ep 366: Writing Aspecs
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl (That's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, ‘Writing Aspecs.’
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: I might be the sleepiest soldier that has ever lived.
SARAH: You're so brave.
KAYLA: I saw ‘Now You Three Me’ in theaters.
SARAH: Why didn't they call it that?
KAYLA: I've been calling it… I don't care what they call it, I've been calling it that. Can I give you a minor spoiler?
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: It seems...
SARAH: There's magic.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's true. It seems quite likely that there will be more movies in the franchise.
SARAH: ‘Now You Four Me.’
KAYLA: Right. So, we've spent a lot of time after we saw the movie, because it seems like it's a Fast and Furious kind of vibe now with the titles, right? Like we're really getting to a point.
SARAH: ‘For You Now Me.’
KAYLA: ‘For You Now Me,’ that's good. So yeah, we were spending a lot of time thinking on that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: ‘For You Now Me.’
SARAH: ‘For You Now Me.’
KAYLA: I was thinking a lot of ‘Now Euphoria,’ and maybe it's like they tied in, you know?
SARAH: Yeah, nice tie in.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: They're basically the same.
KAYLA: Yeah. And I'm seeing ‘Wicked’ tomorrow.
SARAH: You're seeing ‘Wicked’ tomorrow? I guess it is out this weekend.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm. Two movies, two days in a row.
SARAH: Wow. My coworker was supposed to be out of town last weekend, but then ended up not being out of town last weekend. And there was a Producers Guild screening of ‘Wicked’ last weekend, and her daughter was like, “can we go?” And she was like, “well, I'll sign us up for the wait list, but I didn't sign us up before because we were going to be out of town.” And she was like, “sign us up, you're signing us up.” And I guess she kept asking up until like five minutes before it was supposed to start, like, “did we get in?”
KAYLA: Oh, God, noooo
SARAH: And she was like, “no, we did not get in.”
KAYLA: Nooo, that's funny. This child is spoiled, the shows that this child is going to, girl.
SARAH: This child is going to Japan tomorrow.
KAYLA: Of course it is.
SARAH: It?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Do we have any housekeeping?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Okay. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week we are talking about writing and writing things that perhaps you do not know about and how to do it good and how not to do it bad.
SARAH: Yes. We did not know what to talk about this week.
KAYLA: Shocking, I know.
SARAH: And so, I searched the word pod in my notes app and I found two pod topics we had already done that I hadn't deleted the notes.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: I deleted them. And then I found a note from November 9th, 2022.
KAYLA: Good, good, good, good.
SARAH: It has been percolating. And by percolating, I mean, I have not been thinking about it at all.
KAYLA: No, but you have, it's way in the back there, it has been in there.
SARAH: And it says ‘Pod; Allos Writing Aspecs,’ like r/menwritingwomen, but we come up with the stupid shit people think about aspecs. Why do we have to come up with it? Because only aspecs write aspecs.
KAYLA: Hey, do you think that's true?
SARAH: I think it's mostly true.
KAYLA: I want to look up, I just read a book that had a canon ace character and I want to look up the author.
SARAH: I think certainly if they're a main character. Whenever I… if I'm like reading fanfiction or something, whenever I come across a character who is aspec, my immediate thought is, “oh, I didn't realize this author was aspec.”
KAYLA: Let me look up this author. I mean, I don't know, it doesn't say she is, but who knows?
SARAH: So, I think we will get to that, but I think we will first start by backing up. I think we should start on the r/menwritingwomen subreddit.
KAYLA: Okay. So, what is this?
SARAH: Okay. This is a subreddit where people post photos and screenshots of books and real publications written by men when they describe women in a way that is unhinged.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: The most famous one is there was, this person was making fun of men writing women, but they said, “she breasted boobily down the stairs.”
KAYLA: No, no, no.
SARAH: But oftentimes they describe the boobage in a way that is unrealistic, that like it's not how boobs work
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But in a way that tickles their little fancy
KAYLA: Tickles, I wish you wouldn't have said that.
SARAH: So, the first post that I see, are you ready?
KAYLA: I guess.
SARAH: “No, Craig, I want a big, dumb, fake answer. Noelle rolls her eyes. I think her breasts roll in sync with them; girls’ breasts are so amazing.” Like to do that, you would have to do that intentionally?
KAYLA: I'm trying to… roll up.
SARAH: We're both just sitting here trying to make…
KAYLA: You have to do a little shimmy.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like you'd have to… and like, you can't really do that. I mean, I guess if you're like… if you have really good control over specific, you know, if you're one of those people that can…
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Just really control one part of your body at a time.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But like, also why would you do that? That's wild.
SARAH: Like, I think you're making that up, author. Like, I think you're imagining things, to be quite frank.
KAYLA: Hey, you'd have to… yeah, I just… I'm struggling to understand why one would do that.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay, here's another one. It's from ‘This Is Where I Leave You’ by Jonathan Tropper, it came out in 2009. The first one I didn't say, because it was from a tweet that was then reposted, so it didn't say what book it was.
KAYLA: Yeah, okay.
SARAH: But usually, it's one of the rules on this Reddit that you're supposed to see what book it is.
KAYLA: That's really funny but it's so cool.
SARAH: Actually, they like highlighted a section, but I'm actually going to read the whole paragraph, including the part that they didn't highlight.
KAYLA: I can’t wait
SARAH: “What I'm thinking is that she looks fine, pretty even, but nothing like the ripe prom queen she was back in high school.”
KAYLA: Ripe! Ripe!
SARAH: “I wanted her so badly then, everybody did, but she was out of my league, so I settled for becoming her best friend; a form of masochism unique to underconfident teenage boys, our time together spent with her telling me about all the assholes she chose to have sex with instead of me.” Now, this is the highlighted part. “Time and troubles have sharpened her softer edges, and now her face is a knife, her breasts like two clenched fists under her tight blouse. She's a sexy street fight of a woman, and I have been alone and untouched for a while now, and just watching her lips slide against her teeth as she smiles is enough to get me going.” I want you to know that every time I say something weird, Kayla immediately starts like trying to do it.
KAYLA: I put my fists under my shirt to try to be like, “what could you possibly be saying by that?” And then I'm just… I'm doing a little smile and I'm like, “I don't know that that's…”
SARAH: Lips slide against teeth.
KAYLA: I just don't know… Not to be like nasty, but the only way I could see that really like getting you going is if the lips are like really wet or like juicy.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Like just someone moving their mouth is getting you…. I don't know, dude
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Hard fists.
SARAH: Clenched fists.
KAYLA: Clenched fists.
SARAH: See, but when you say clenched fists, I just think… because like those are uneven, right? So, like, are her boobs like really hard and bumpy?
KAYLA: Well, I'm thinking they're small.
SARAH: She should see a doctor.
KAYLA: I'm thinking they're small and like you can see the nipple because like if I put a clenched fist under my shirt, you can like see my knuckles.
SARAH: But I'm just imagining the whole thing is like a knuckle. Like it's lots… several bumps
KAYLA: Multiple nipples.
SARAH: In which case, please see a doctor.
KAYLA: I'm just not so sure about that.
SARAH: Yeah. I'm not going to read this whole thing, but this one is from a book where they go into much detail about vampiric breast anatomy.
KAYLA: Vampiric?
SARAH: Yes. So, they're vampires. “Mercedes questioned whether that degree of shaking was healthy, but unfortunately vampire nations were still only at a medieval level of development, meaning brassieres had yet to be invented. While there existed an underwear that could support the breasts, it was not the proper item that existed in modern day Japan. Still, the fact that vampiric busts never sagged was what truly accounted for this. Their Cooper's ligaments were tough and would regenerate if lacerated. Consequently, Sieglinde's breasts bounced every day, drawing much attention from the boys.”
[00:10:00]
KAYLA: Every day. So, they're saying part of them being eternal is that their boobs don't sag over time?
SARAH: Yeah. So, Sieglinde, “her breasts had always been rather developed and they now shook with every step.”
KAYLA: I want to punch the man who wrote this.
SARAH: Well, this is Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat by Firehead.
KAYLA: Mr. Head, I don't think so.
SARAH: Mr. Head?
KAYLA: I'm not so sure. At that point, just write porn. Like we know you want to.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Clearly you want to so bad, just do it.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay, this is Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. “She had gone on too many hunts, borne too many children, fought too many fights. With a rare and fleeting knowledge of herself, she glanced down at her bare green breasts, they were less plump than they had been when she first took the man Harris to her, they hung lower, their shape was less beautiful. By instinct, she knew her youth was over. By instinct, she knew it was time to Go Up.” Go Up, like both the G and the U are capitalized, I assume this means die
KAYLA: Mm-hmm, when your boobs start to sag, so you die.
SARAH: Oh, Lampshade from Baldur's Gate 3, I believe this is intended to be satire. “Her ample bosoms fluttered like doves' fingers brushing against his nails.” They fluttered, they fluttered, her ample bosoms, they fluttered.
KAYLA: I don't like it.
SARAH: Doves don't have fingers.
KAYLA: I really don't like the word bosom. A dove's fingers.
SARAH: Okay. So that's just kind of a…
KAYLA: So, that's what we're working with?
SARAH: That's what we're working with. Um, what!? Okay, this is The Pennycandystore Beyond the El by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, it's from 1958.
KAYLA: I'm scared.
SARAH: It appears to be a poetry. “A girl ran in. Her hair was shiny. Her breasts were breathless in the little room.”
KAYLA: What?
SARAH: “Outside, the leaves were falling, and they cried, too soon, too soon.” Okay, so titties can't breathe.
KAYLA: Are you sure?
SARAH: They don't inhale and exhale oxygen and the stuff that's in the air. So, what do we mean they were breathless? You were breathless looking at them? Why does the size of the room matter?
KAYLA: Because they can't breathe, they're clearly breathless, they can't breathe like you just said.
SARAH: They're in too tight of a confinement?
KAYLA: Yep.
SARAH: Ew. “Her young breasts…” What? Oh my God. Oh my God. This gets worse when I read the context. I'm going to read it to you and then give you the context.
KAYLA: I feel like we've had too many terrible things on the podcast lately.
SARAH: Ghost Fire by Wilbur Smith and Tom Harper. Theo…
KAYLA: Ew
SARAH: “Constance was dressed in Indian style…” in Indian style.
KAYLA: No, no, no.
SARAH: “With a bright saree wrapped around her and draped over her shoulders, she had mastered the intricacies of the garment so that it clung to the contours of her body, shifting easily as she moved. She wore nothing underneath.”
KAYLA: What!?
SARAH: “Yet she had a slimmer waist than many a woman who trusts herself up with iron stays and whale bone busks. Her young breasts swelled under the fabric.” Here's the horrible context.
KAYLA: It's his child.
SARAH: It's his sister.
KAYLA: It's his sister. I don't think you can wear nothing under a saree.
SARAH: Yeah, because then you would just... coochie would be out.
KAYLA: Well, isn't part of wrapping the saree like tucking it into the underskirt?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like you can't wear nothing. Part of it is the clothes under the... girl.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay, Sarah, we can't just keep reading terrible things.
SARAH: Okay, I'm closing it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent Reddit for straight people writing queer people.
KAYLA: That's too bad.
SARAH: So… sorry, this person was like, they're asking for advice as a non-queer writer for writing queer characters.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And this person goes, “just don't fetishize them.” And then someone responds with, “or if you do fetishize us, make a super-hot” (smiley face.)
KAYLA: That's stupid. I mean, I don't think we have a lack of examples of queer characters clearly written by straight people. Like, you look on TV and I feel like there are so many queer characters that feel so stereotypical and just...
SARAH: Oh! OP is actually aro-ace. So, they are… well, okay, first of all, you are not a non-LGBT plus writer, first of all, let's jot that down. Second of all… but I understand what they mean, like non-allo is what they mean.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Then this person says, “people can write about whatever they want, although I do find a problem with the straight people writing gay romances as extremely heteronormative. I feel like some writers try to make up for the fact that they're both dudes by making one extremely submissive and the other extremely dominant. I mostly see them to be very into yaoi, which definitely play a factor in how they choose to write these things.”
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, we talked about that a couple of weeks ago
SARAH: We did. With them people enforcing gender stereotypes onto queer couples. This is an interesting comment. It says, “to add a new perspective, specifically writing and reading male/male mostly written by cis women in my late teens helps me better understand my feelings, eventually being the single strongest influence in me realizing I'm a non-binary trans masculine person who leans gay romantic. The way cis women of any sexuality portray men was formative in my AFAB trans expression as a masculine aligned non-binary trans guy.” Ooh, that was a lot of words. “If I didn't experience gay culture through male/male fiction, I'd have remained unable to explain feelings I'd had for most of my life and would have believed I had a weird wrong fetish and that I was broken somehow for the sake of anyone questioning their identity, let them read and write whatever they want, the world is better for it.”
KAYLA: I do think the point about people questioning is a very good point. I've recently… I saw something about, I think her name is Aimee, she's the actress that was in White Lotus, the very British one, and everyone makes fun of her teeth.
SARAH: Mm, yeah
KAYLA: I saw a quote from an interview with her where I think she wrote a book or a screenplay about an autistic person, and she was like, “at the time I was writing this, I did not know I was autistic. And then later I got tested and I was.” And she was like, “throughout the whole writing, it was clearly just this subconscious thing,” which is interesting, like clearly, she was having some sort of thoughts about it and then ended up getting diagnosed and whatever. So, I think it's an interesting point about if you were to try to police, you know, only queer people should be writing queer stories, it's like, okay, well, what if they are doing this as a way to, you know, kind of test the waters?
SARAH: Yeah, very real. I saw a tweet earlier today, I'm having trouble finding it. I'm gonna paraphrase because it used a different phrasing than this, but I don't remember what it was, so I'm going to paraphrase with what I hope is equally funny phrasing. The person was like, I have no problem with straight people writing gay fanfic as long as it's good enough to goon to, I don't care.
KAYLA: No, I hate that word.
SARAH: It wasn't the word they used, but I can't remember what word they had used and I can't find the post.
KAYLA: I mean there is a point, though, about like, if it's good, I don't have a problem with it necessarily, you know?
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I mean, I think there's, A, is it good both in like writing quality and, you know, you're not… there's not stereotypes, the representation is…
SARAH: And are they people?
KAYLA: Yeah. But I also think the intention is another thing, are you doing this because, you know writing male/male romance is lucrative and more lucrative than sapphic romance, for sure. And I guess I don't know about straight romance, probably not, but like, why are you doing that?
SARAH: But there's certainly an audience hungry for it.
KAYLA: Yeah. But it's like, are you doing that because you have a story that you actually think is good and the characters have to be gay for that to work? Or is it just like, yeah, no, whatever.
SARAH: Right. It's also like so different if you're writing fanfiction of existing… like it's one thing if you're a straight person being like, I'm gonna write fanfiction about these existing characters or these existing people, because like, I'm taking what is real, and I'm applying it to this new universe, if you're writing something completely, wholly original and you're straight, and you want it to be gay, why do you want it to be gay?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like, what? Is it something in the story? Is it just because you think there should be more gays? Or is it because there's some like weird fetish something happening?
KAYLA: Or are you trying to hit some diversity quota?
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Or… you know, there has to be the gay best friend in this whatever.
SARAH: Right.
[00:20:00]
KAYLA: Which I think, like I was saying the terrible portrayals that there are on TV, I think the like gay best friend is often the worst offender of that is just the most stereotypical character of just like, you know, super flamboyantly gay, yas queen, whatever, like, is that how some gay people are? Like, yeah, sure.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: But I think that is just obviously way overplayed.
SARAH: And I think it was especially bad back in the day when it was like, “ooh, look at us, diverse!”
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But then they would cast a straight person to play the role.
KAYLA: Oh, yeah.
SARAH: Because like when we have cast shows at my job, if a character is intended to be queer, for discrimination reasons, you can't say you're not allowed to audition if you're straight, you can't say that.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But we have been… like the casting breakdowns have always been like, you know, “highly encouraging queer people,” except they use the full acronym, and the full Canadian acronym is even longer because it includes two spirit.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like we encourage these people to apply. And then we were recently casting a queer character for a show and the character is canonically-queer, they have to be queer because they are a love interest.
KAYLA: Mm, that will do it
SARAH: And we were down to like two options. And so, what did I do? I looked both of them up on the internet to see if they were queer. One of them confirmed queer, the other one, no evidence, but again, that doesn't mean that they're not.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like that to me is an important, if all other things are equal, that's an important deciding factor to me.
KAYLA: Oh yeah, yeah.
SARAH: Because you can more accurately depict shit. Do you think… are there any stereotypes that you think… well, I mean, here's a stereotype that I think a lot of straight people would try… Like someone mentioned this that I was reading before, like just trying to stick them into heteronormative molds.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: When I was looking for that tweet that I couldn't find, I found some other tweets of people talking about like, you know, so much of yaoi, “yawi,” however the fuck you say it.
KAYLA: I wish you would stop using that word that you don't know how to pronounce.
SARAH: It's fun. I see it written all the time. It just means that I’m well-read
KAYLA: Imagine you're the listener, you have no idea what you're talking about.
SARAH: It just means that I'm well-read because…
KAYLA: Because you read tweets?
SARAH: Because I read tweets. Yeah, and I don't know how to pronounce it…
KAYLA: She's so well read, she reads tweets.
SARAH: Give me one fucking second. Yaoi, I was right, basically. Anyway.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: Yaoi. Except it was a French guy and it's a Japanese word.
KAYLA: Ma'am.
SARAH: Anyway. A lot of it is like the most femme, like physically smallest man you've ever seen. And then like big… especially in like graphic novels and like where like there is imagery, it's often like big hulking man and then little femme and it's like, I mean that's, you're basically just sticking them into heteronormative holds.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: So, I think that's definitely something that I'm sure a lot of straight authors might be inclined to do. Is there anything else that you think is probably an issue?
KAYLA: For aspecs or just queer things in general?
SARAH: For queer to start with.
KAYLA: I mean, like I said, just the portraying every queer person as like very flamboyantly gay, especially for men, like very effeminate or for gay women, very masculine. Again, obviously that is of course the case for some people, but if that's what we're going to do every single time, then it's like, what are we doing?
SARAH: Yeah. This is a slightly different post, it's from r/writingcirclejerk.
KAYLA: Oh
SARAH: This person says, “as someone who is queer and wants to be a writer, how much awful queer representation can I get away with? I mean, I know it's no longer the ‘90s and 2000s and the bar isn't as low, but how much could I still do before I have to actually try and be progressive? Look how far TV writers like Ryan Murphy have gone, though this time it's more with books. Then again, I can just say I had good intentions seems to work all the time.” Can we talk about All's Fair?
KAYLA: I mean, I know very little about it, but you can certainly talk about it.
SARAH: It's the new Ryan Murphy show, it's on Hulu.
KAYLA: Ryan Murphy of… Glee creator.
SARAH: Glee, Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story.
KAYLA: Oh, I thought American Horror Story was supposed to be good.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: It was.
KAYLA: Well then what? He fell off.
SARAH: That's the thing.
KAYLA: I see.
SARAH: And Nip/Tuck was good.
KAYLA: I don’t know anything about that
SARAH: Supposedly. It was pre-Glee.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: We were like children. He is capable of creating excellent television.
KAYLA: And yet.
SARAH: And yet. Apparently with All's Fair, so, it's this… it’s supposed to be like a woman… Actually, this is a good example of what we're talking about, it's supposed to be like women empowerment. It's about these women who run their own law firm in L.A. and they mostly do divorces.
KAYLA: Ah
SARAH: In it is Glenn Close, fucking, what's her name?
KAYLA: I can see her face. Sarah something maybe?
SARAH: Sarah Paulson.
KAYLA: Sarah Paulson.
SARAH: See, I thought it was Sarah Paulson, but I got scared that it was not going to be.
KAYLA: But it was.
SARAH: Niecy Nash and Kim Kardashian.
KAYLA: Yeah. Who failed the bar exam.
SARAH: Who failed the bar.
KAYLA: Even though the psychics told her she would pass, I could have told her she was going to fail.
SARAH: And Teyana Taylor is the other like main big character. And it is… okay, I'll be honest, I've only seen one clip from it, but my coworker has watched multiple episodes.
KAYLA: I've seen a lot of screen grabs and a lot of quotes and they are…
SARAH: I've read a lot of reviews.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And it is the worst television show ever made. The problem is that because it's so bad, people are watching it.
KAYLA: Oh, yeah.
SARAH: I have heard that Ryan Murphy would just not accept notes from Hulu.
KAYLA: Oh, great.
SARAH: Like he would just not accept any notes, which is why it's so bad, this is what happens, when people get too big for their britches, people are either afraid to note them or they just can get away with rejecting all notes. And like so, you know, when he does get noted on his stuff, it turns out good, when he doesn't, it turns out to be like this.
KAYLA: The quotes I have seen is some of the most like vile, raunchy things that these characters are saying, and for no reason
SARAH: Like raunchy for raunchiness’s sake.
KAYLA: Yeah. Not to be… like to make a point, it's like every sentence is just being nasty for no reason.
SARAH: Apparently, they had all male directors.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's supposed to be a show about women empowerment by gay men with mostly male writers, all male directors. Kim Kardashian cannot act, I saw a review that said that they would compare her acting performance to that of a piece of cardboard, but they didn't want to because they feared that that would be an insult to cardboard, which is a perfectly good packaging material.
KAYLA: Do you have that article you sent me with the quotes from it?
SARAH: Not on hand, I could look at our texts.
KAYLA: I'm trying to… Oh, there's a… Okay, there's this like pop culture guy I follow on Instagram, he posts a lot of screen grabs from TV shows and stuff. So let me read some from what he posted this week.
SARAH: Okay, I have it
KAYLA: Some random man… Well, I just want to read this one at least because…
SARAH: Yeah. No, go for it.
KAYLA: Some random man asks Sarah Paulson, “another glass of wine?” And she says, “does a chicken have lips?” We have...
SARAH: Does that mean her answer is no, because the chicken doesn't have lips, therefore
KAYLA: Here's what I'm talking about with the vulgarity for no reason. Sarah Paulson says, “I'm so sorry I didn't bring my daughter over more often when you were married to that circuit party cum dump who was draining your IRA so he could hoover pink cocaine off a urinal in boy bar.” What!?
SARAH: And the thing the thing is that aside from Kim Kardashian, these are really good actors
KAYLA: Renowned
SARAH: Like renowned, like award… like Glenn Fucking Close.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And even they cannot rescue these lines from being horrible.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Okay, they're fucking lawyers, Kim Kardashian plays a fucking lawyer, there's a scene where her… there's like a cut out of her ass and she's at work.
KAYLA: That’s so crazy.
SARAH: Her ass is sticking out of her pants via a cut out
KAYLA: At work?
SARAH: At work.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Here's a quote, “you know me, I’d do anything for you except represent you, which I wouldn't do, even if I were penniless and starving on a street corner, forced to blow a priest with chlamydia for a bowl of re-fried beans.”
KAYLA: Like the lines just keep… like, why do you have to say all that? There's no reason for that.
SARAH: Also, their characters, their names are insane. Kim Kardashian plays Allura Grant.
KAYLA: Nooo
SARAH: Niecy Nash plays Emerald Greene.
KAYLA: No.
[00:30:00]
SARAH: We have… Glenn Close plays Dina Standish. Sarah Paulson is Carrington Lane, that one is not as good. What's the other? What's the other fucking one? Oh, yes. Naomi Watts plays Liberty Ronson.
KAYLA: No, Emerald Green is just something else.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay, somebody has a revenge vagina. Spoken by Emerald as Allura talks them through the procedures she's just had done to erase the indignity of broken marriage, they include the injection of a long-lasting filler formulated from salmon sperm. She also gets graphic about vaginal PRP, a plasma treatment involving and then it quotes her directly, I'm not going to read it.
KAYLA: Mm hmm.
SARAH: “Anyway, see you in court, cunt burger.” Like?
KAYLA: I saw another one from Sarah Paulson to Kim Kardashian that was like, “I was so looking forward to crushing you in court next week. I guess I'll have to masturbate about something else until…” whenever. Like, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Like a line like that every once in a while, when it makes sense for the character, yeah, it's punchy like it gets whatever, but you can't have every line be like that, then it's just nothing.
SARAH: No, that's not how people talk. When I Googled it, a YouTube video came up that says All's Fair episode five is the worst one so far. So, I really… I need to watch this show, I think.
KAYLA: Yeah, I fear. This sounds like a Dean show. Dean got like really deep into Riverdale and like I had to forcibly pull him out, I feel like he would really get into this show.
SARAH: It's up to three percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
KAYLA: Oh, huge.
SARAH: It was at zero.
KAYLA: I just like… I wonder what the actresses contracts are. Like, are they going to be… because this is probably going to have a season two, right? Like everyone is talking about it, people are hate watching it. Are they signed on for season two? That they have to do this?
SARAH: They're going to make buckets of money.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I mean, depending on what their contracts are. I don't know what their contracts are, but oftentimes you'll get locked in for like if it is renewed, you're locked in for X number of years.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I heard that some, if not all of them signed on before ever reading a script, which explains a lot.
KAYLA: Yeah. But like it also makes sense because a couple of them were on American Horror Story and that was obviously hugely successful.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So, it's like they probably trusted him that like this is going to be another huge hit like that was.
SARAH: Yeah. And then we were trying to explain to my boss how straight… straight? Not straight. How white gay men and just gay men in general can be misogynistic and he like didn't understand. And we were like, “no, no, no, no.”
KAYLA: Yeah, I was going to say that earlier. This feels like a very… like Ryan Murphy feels like a very classic example of the white gay man…
SARAH: Cis white gay
KAYLA: Who like diva-fys women, especially women of color.
SARAH: This is a show about women.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's not, though, it's about…
SARAH: It’s about costume porn
KAYLA: I mean, these characters are like drag queens at this point, right?
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Like this is a hyper feminization of like a very certain type of woman.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Like this is not real, this is you creating a bunch of like little divas or whatever.
SARAH: One more thing to say, there's a kiss scene…
KAYLA: Why?
SARAH: At the end of the pilot, which all of the reviews commented on how horrible it was. And I was like, “wow, that's… okay.” My coworker watches it. She's watching it at work because we can do that because it's our job, TV.
KAYLA: Yeah, sure
SARAH: She comes running down the hallway barefoot and she goes, “Sarah, you have to watch this kiss scene.” And I was like, “oh, no.”
KAYLA: Oh, no
SARAH: And she was like, “it's horrible.” She's like, “I felt so strongly I ran here without my shoes on.” So, we pull up Hulu and she… it's like the last scene, if you want to watch it, it's the last scene in the pilot.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: It is the most disturbing… it is so tongue-forward.
KAYLA: No, I don’t want to… I'm going to look at that, I bet it's on TikTok or something.
SARAH: It is terrifying.
KAYLA: What is the show called?
SARAH: All's Fair.
KAYLA: All's Fair kiss scene.
SARAH: It's Teyana Taylor and…
KAYLA: This man?
SARAH: Matthew Noszka, yeah.
KAYLA: Just show me the kissing.
SARAH: I'll see if I can find it. If not, you can just go to Hulu, it's the last scene.
KAYLA: I don’t want to, I just want them to show it to me.
SARAH: The problem is that they kiss multiple times and it's the one that's especially bad, it's horrifying, it made me scared for my life.
KAYLA: That's not good.
SARAH: Anyway, sorry, this this was our All's Fair detour, I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to do that. But it is relevant because it's gays writing women.
KAYLA: Yeah. Yes. True. Ryan Murphy, I'm just imagining like… I mean, a lot of people talk about like, if Glee was on now, this, this, this, you know, this, they would cover this thing or whatever.
SARAH: Oh, yeah
KAYLA: Can you imagine Ryan Murphy taking on an aspec character?
SARAH: Oh my God.
KAYLA: Because like, look at how anyone was taken on that show; people in wheelchairs, people of color, people with like this other disability, like any gay person. I was watching, one of my friends is rewatching Glee just like for the horror of it and because she grew up with it, whatever, and I was over at her place…
SARAH: The first season is apparently not bad, it’s pretty good
KAYLA: I watched the first couple of seasons growing up, like as a family, we watched it. Like we would sit down and watch it.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But she had just been watching the episode where Artie, the character that is in a wheelchair…
SARAH: Played by a non-wheelchair user, by the way.
KAYLA: Yeah. The episode is him having… like, it's a wonderful life thing where he like has a dream that he can walk.
SARAH: Oh my God
KAYLA: And so, the whole episode is like how your life would be if you could walk.
SARAH: Oh
KAYLA: Why?
SARAH: I saw a video the other day that was one second from every episode of Glee.
KAYLA: I love that.
SARAH: And they picked the most terrifying second of every episode, it was so good
KAYLA: I bet they did. Okay.
SARAH: Anyway, anyway. Okay. Okay.
KAYLA: Back on topic.
SARAH: Let's talk about allos writing aspecs. If they were so bold and brave as to do it, what mistakes do we think they would make?
KAYLA: I think there would be… well, okay. Here's the thing. Because there's a lot of stereotypes about aspec people, obviously. I think a big one is that all asexual people are sex-repulsed.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: So, I think most of the writing would be in that vein.
SARAH: Which sucks because like that is true for some people.
KAYLA: I know
SARAH: It's not like you can be like, “this isn't true,” because it can be true.
KAYLA: Right. So, my first thought was there'd be these very dramatic scenes where an asexual person sees a penis or something and throws up very dramatically, and it's like this whole thing.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: Which like that happens. So, it's not even like that's inaccurate, but also again, it's like the intention of why are you writing that?
SARAH: Right. It's like, it's not representative of aspecness as a whole. It can be representative of one aspec person's experience. But then to that end, you say, okay, well, if I'm only going to have one aspec character, because I understand that if it's not about queerness, it might be weird to have like a bunch, like statistically, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: If you have one character, they have to have one identity. You can't shove everything onto them. So, then it's like deciding which one you give them. And if you give them the stereotypical one, it doesn't mean that it's not still accurate to some people's experience, but it's not doing a good job of representing aspecness to a general public because the general public is already so misinformed about what it means to be aspec, because they have such a narrow definition of what that is.
KAYLA: Yeah. I think that's what's hard, is I feel like we aren't there yet with the general population's understanding of asexuality and aromanticism to expect nuanced representation like that because it's just confusing.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: It's complicated.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: It's more complicated to explain than other identities, and that is to our detriment in terms of becoming understood and respected by the broader public.
KAYLA: Yeah. So, it's like… obviously, again, with intentions, if you're being malicious with the stereotypes… but if there was an aspec writer who chose to write a really stereotypical aspec character, I don't even know how truly upset at that I could be.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: Like, it's not great, I would like to see a variety of nuanced takes, but also is it better to have no representation or to do what a publisher would deem publishable? I don't know. Which is how I think it was in the 90s and 2000s with gay characters of we know that this is not the best representation, we're just trying to throw anything we can in there. And maybe at a later time, we can put some more nuanced takes in media.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: Expand on that, yeah
KAYLA: So yeah, I don't know, it's hard.
SARAH: Yeah. I think certainly what they would lump aromanticism and asexuality together and any characters would be both, which again, I am both.
KAYLA: Yeah. You can't… yeah
SARAH: It's complicated, but I feel like… my other concern is, this is again a nuanced thing, that in writing the aspec experience, of like coming to terms with understanding your aspecness, I feel like they would latch not too much because it is a big thing, but they would over-exaggeratedly latch onto the struggle of figuring out your aspec because it is a lack of something.
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: Because that is true and that is something that aspec people consistently struggle with is figuring out their aspec is hard because it is by definition a lack of a certain type of attraction and that's harder to quantify.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I fear though that an allo person writing an aspec character would read too much into that and be like, oh, like I'm not a real person, I lack whatever. And it's like… some people certainly have those thoughts.
KAYLA: That's the thing though, it's like that is a common thing.
SARAH: It is, but I fear that they would just do it in a way that's like there's too much mustard on it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like they're intentionally bringing attention to it, putting way too much mustard on it.
KAYLA: Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I think there is a very real way out. Like, coming to terms with being aspec is not easy and for a lot of people it is a very long struggle that is continual, like never fully accepting that about yourself. So, I could see some authors who, I don't know, what's the word for it? Like it's like revenge porn, but for like being sad
SARAH: Huh!?
KAYLA: Like, someone who just is always writing like just deeply sad, like… Do you know what I…
SARAH: Whomp
KAYLA: Do you know what I mean by that though?
SARAH: Like they only write super downer shit?
KAYLA: Yeah. But like to the point where it's like super dramatized and like, I don't know.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Anyway
SARAH: The diamond tears rolled down her cheeks, you know, like that kind of like?
KAYLA: Yeah. I could just see like, if you're someone who's like, I want to write about trauma, what's my...
SARAH: Mm, I understand, sad porn.
KAYLA: Sad porn.
SARAH: I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it.
KAYLA: Like I love writing about trauma, what kind of character is going to get me there? Like an aspec person is like, you know?
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: It could… there's some stuff there.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: And if you're like…
SARAH: And be probably like, “let's throw in some assault. Why not?”
KAYLA: Right. And again, if you're writing it from a real experience of like, yes, this is a hard thing for a lot of people, that's one thing. But if you're just like, let's fucking get into trauma and make a really dramatic story, then it's like, okay
SARAH: Right. I would say as an aspec person, my advice for writing aspec characters, I haven't written a lot of, not that they're not canonically aspec, but as I've said before, like I don't make their identity a thing. Like it's not about them being aspec except for that one rom-com idea I have.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: So, like, I'm not necessarily like thinking about portraying their aspec-ness. Like a lot of times it's just like, well, of course that character is aspec. Why?
KAYLA: Because I said
SARAH: Because they're the main character, I don't know.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Actually, the pilot I have been working on recently, the main character is not aspec, but you know who is aspec? The other, the second one.
KAYLA: The other one.
SARAH: So. And I wanted to put that like in the pilot, but it was too on the nose. Like it didn't work, but in my heart, it'll get there, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But my advice, when they're young, have them come up with fake crushes, but they don't realize it's a fake crush.
KAYLA: Yeah, that’s good
SARAH: Like they think that this is how everyone comes up with crushes is they think a lot about it, that's my suggestion.
KAYLA: Yeah. I think my suggestion based on, so as I mentioned, I just read a book with a canon, I think they were aro-ace, I think both. It was called, ‘Not Good for Maidens.’ It's like a young adult fantasy where this girl finds out her family is like witches and there's this like goblin market that comes to their town every summer and like lures witches in and then you could die. And it's kind of like a little bit of a throw-away at the point where they are like, “oh, and I'm aro-ace.” Like, it doesn't feel especially relevant except there's like a lot of other queer characters. So, like clearly the author is like, “we're all going to be gay.”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But it's very interesting because the main character who is aspec fundamentally does not understand why other people are being lured into this market.
SARAH: It's like the siren thing.
KAYLA: Yeah. And for a lot of them it is, like they're lured by like very attractive people, there's like a sexual energy to it. And she just like fundamentally is like, why…
SARAH: Like, why the fuck would you do that?
KAYLA: Why would you do that?
SARAH: You know it's wrong. Like, you know you're going to never come back.
KAYLA: Right. And it's not even that she, I think misunderstands like the sexual nature of it, I think she just like, doesn't get it. But to me, that was really interesting of like aspec people just fundamentally see the world differently, and that was a really interesting expression of everyone else was thinking one way, and she was like, “why are you thinking that? What is the appeal? I don't understand that.” So, my suggestion would be that when you write an aspec character, you cannot just write them as someone with that sexuality, you have to understand how that changes their worldview. Which I think is true for any queer character, when you're queer, that changes how you interact with the world and how you grew up. So, I think like, it makes sense that there would be things that they do and think about differently.
SARAH: Boy, do I have a book for you?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's called ‘Sounds Fake But Okay.”
KAYLA: Oh my God, that sounds really good
SARAH: You can learn about the aspec lens and apply that to the character and your own life.
KAYLA: I was talking to a friend recently about Jennifer Lawrence movies randomly. And we were talking about, what's the one where she, there's like the teenage boy…
SARAH: Andrew Barth Feldman, she's like 30 and they hire her to date him?
KAYLA: Yeah, the parents like hire her.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So, I've never seen it. I've heard it's really good, but my friend was like, yeah, I like feel kind of weird about it, because it's like, why is this like 30-year-old woman dating a teenager or whatever?
SARAH: Well, that's the point.
KAYLA: Well, yeah, and that's the point. But I was like, I actually have heard that a lot of aspec people really like the movie because like the guy character comes off as aspec. So, I was like, I've actually heard like some aspecs say they really like it. And she was like, “Oh my God, I’ll have…”
SARAH: I can see Andrew Barth Feldman being good at portraying an aspec, like he is not to my knowledge, but…
KAYLA: Yeah, he's good though, I could see him pulling it off
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: But she was like, “Oh, I'll have to watch it with my purple glasses on.” And I was like, “ha ha ha ha ha”
SARAH: Silly. Yeah, I… that's our poll, I'm saying that right now
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Our poll for this week, as aspecs, because I know most of you all are, what would your advice be for an allo who is trying to write, create, build, play as an actor, an aspec character, like what do they need to know in order for it to feel real?
KAYLA: Yeah, I like it.
SARAH: Because I just… it's in… I just know. He he!
KAYLA: Yeah, it's in you.
SARAH: And I also feel like I just know with allos because I've been exposed to it my whole fucking life.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like have I experienced it? No. But I've seen it and I've consumed it and I…
KAYLA: You have studied
SARAH: I've studied the sword, so I… perhaps, the aspecs are best at understanding everything.
KAYLA: Mm.
SARAH: It's an unsubstantiated claim
KAYLA: Something to consider
SARAH: Perhaps
KAYLA: Perhaps. Hey, perhaps
SARAH: Perhaps
KAYLA: You never know.
SARAH: You never know. So, that's our poll. We've…
KAYLA: We've done it.
SARAH: Yes. Anything else?
KAYLA: No, I want to go to bed.
SARAH: Great. She wants to go to sleep-seas. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is that at first it was way too cold in my apartment because the heat wasn't working and then now that the heat is working again, it is way too hot because I live in Boston so everything is old and so I have radiators and there is literally no way to control the temperature in my own home. Isn't that cool?
SARAH: So silly.
[00:50:00]
KAYLA: My juice is that I'm going to eat a lot of popcorn this week because I saw a movie today and I'm going to see one tomorrow
SARAH: Wow
KAYLA: And you know the fancy like Coke Freestyle pop machines with all the flavors?
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Our movie theater has one and they have special wicked flavors.
SARAH: Aww
KAYLA: So, a bunch of the different types of pop have like…
SARAH: Purple pussy, that's a flavor.
KAYLA: I did not see that one. There was two Fantas that I tried, one was like rainbow sprinkle, it just tasted like crazy fruit punch, but the other was…
SARAH: Crazy fruit punch.
KAYLA: It tasted like fruit punch, but like, whoa. But the other one was like a sour green apple, I don't know how much of it I could drink because it was just like drinking candy. But I was like, “damn, this is crazy.”
SARAH: Wow.
KAYLA: Yep.
SARAH: Congrats to the fountain years.
KAYLA: Dean did great work; Dean told me I could get whatever pop I wanted from the machine
SARAH: Oh my God
KAYLA: Because we were going to share and I was like, “well, what can I get?” And he was like, “just get whatever, I probably won't drink much.” So, I got a great pop and then I was like, “Oh, guess what I got?” And he tasted it and he was like, “I should not have let you get whatever you wanted.”
SARAH: He should not have agreed to that
KAYLA: I like grape soda, what can I say? Okay, I'm done now.
SARAH: It's because you're from Michigan.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's true.
SARAH: Okay. My beef is toothpaste, I ran out of it, so I went to the store to buy more. I bought…
KAYLA: Period, and I hate that.
SARAH: That’s it. I bought a three pack to be economical, I hate the taste
KAYLA: No, that sucks
SARAH: I just like wasn't paying that much… because I always get the same brand and there's only like two flavors and I just wasn't really paying that much attention.
KAYLA: That's tough.
SARAH: And I really don't like it. And so, I think I'm going to power through one of them and then give the other two to my mom because she always steals my toothpaste.
KAYLA: Well, there you go. There you go.
SARAH: So that's what I get for trying to be economical. My juice is over the weekend I went to a Palestinian Christmas market, which was cool.
KAYLA: That's fun.
SARAH: A huge line, many people, they were selling the fuck out.
KAYLA: Love that
SARAH: I got a cute little tiny bear key chain with a little kofia. And I got the kofia bandana for my head.
KAYLA: Aww
SARAH: My other juice is the K-pop group XLOV, I could talk about this for a really long time, but Kayla wants to sleep.
KAYLA: I really want to go to bed
SARAH: So, let me just say queer as fuck
KAYLA: Love that
SARAH: Gender made up, recently in an… these are the ones where like multiple of them have been like, “I don't care what pronouns you use for me.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Recently in an interview, one of them was speaking in English about another one and they went to say, “his bag,” and they started saying, “his” and then cut themselves off and then backtracked and said, “Rui’s.” Like, they said the name.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: And we were like…
KAYLA: That's tea
SARAH: So, we were going to gender them with he/hims and we backtracked?
KAYLA: And then we did not? Very interesting.
SARAH: That's interesting. Anyway, we love them. They're great. They have bangers. They're the best. Everyone should love them. Also, one of them talks like a drag queen and he's like six foot two and they don't whitewash him.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Like he is pretty tan, and like they're leaning into that instead of trying to whitewash him, wild.
KAYLA: Imagine! imagine!
SARAH: Anyway, they also are all heterophobic in the sense that, you know heterochromia when you have two different eye colors?
KAYLA: Sure, yes.
SARAH: And you know how people are always like, “Oh, I love their heterophobic eyes.” It's like a joke.
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: Well, they all have a color and they often will be wearing one color contacts of that color, so they're heterophobic.
KAYLA: I see.
SARAH: It's a little much at first to get used to the heterophobic eyes, but…
KAYLA: Yeah, I could see that
SARAH: Anyway, you should all listen to XLOV, their most recent song is called Rizz and you have to just look past the fact that it's called Rizz.
KAYLA: That is tough.
SARAH: Also, their most recent like songs, horny, gay-horny, which is crazy because they're rookies, but they're all adults and that's what happens when you're adults, you can be gay-horny.
KAYLA: I mean, what are you going to do, you’re going to be gay-horny
SARAH: And some of the choreography, it's like, “Oh, okay”
KAYLA: “Gay-horny.”
SARAH: “Gay-horny.” And one of the music shows censored some of their lyrics and there's a lyric where they use boy, like talking to you boy in a situation where they would probably usually be expected to use girl and that was part of what was censored.
KAYLA: Right! Right! Right! Why not!?
SARAH: But instead of changing the words, they just like, didn't say anything in that part, like to highlight, like to be like, “this has been censored.”
KAYLA: That is very silly. Okay, and now you're done.
SARAH: That's all, that's all, I'm done. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your thoughts on how you should write aspec characters if you are not aspec, or if you are, I don't care, on our social media @soundsfakepod, we also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you want to support us there. Our $5 patrons who we're promoting this week are Bronwyn Herron, Clark Fadoir, Jiro the Wolf, Arctic Enby, and Cinnamon Toast Punch. I want Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I want those cookies that the Pillsbury ones that have pictures on them and you just put them... I haven't been able to find them, I've been trying. Okay. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Alastor who would like to promote the podcast Shadows and Shenanigans, Ani who would like to promote the importance of being kind to yourself and others, Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, and Clare Olsen who would like to promote Impact_Frame. Our other… that's too dark. Our other $10 patrons are Danielle Hutchinson, Derick & Carissa, Elle Bitter, Eric, my aunt Jeannie, Johanna, Kayla's dad, KELLER bradley, Maff, Martin Chiesl, Purple Hayes, Quartertone, I almost called Quorantone, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, and Val. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina, who would like to promote katemaggartart.com, and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex who would like to promote their country, control… country? Their company, Control Alt Access, Dr. Jacki, Dragonfly, my mom, and River who would like to promote Happy Thanksgiving to our Americans. Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
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