Ep 180: Aspec Headcanons for Game Characters
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SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA:… and a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla)
SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: aspec game characters.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
KAYLA: Bababababa dadada.. I feel like I’ve been seeing things in my house recently.
SARAH: We are absolutely going to start with that. Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: M’y house is haunted maybe, or I just am paranoid, who’s the say?
SARAH: Good, excellent, fantastic. Oh great. Do you have anything else to say that we need to say at the top of this podcast or should we just dive into the chaos?
KAYLA: I mean... Who is to say, I don’t know. AVEN finally got verified on Twitter.
SARAH: Yes, that’s exciting. Big deal.
KAYLA: After so many years, Twitter decided to do the bare minimum, so, yeahhh.
SARAH: So Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week the idea from way back whenever we did the episode of rating aspec vibes of pictures that you all submitted and someone submitted “my man Plum,” the Professor Plum of the game Clue. And it got us thinking, what if we rate the aspec vibes of game characters—maybe classic board game characters. So today we’re going to go through just some classic characters and talk about just the vibes they give off.
SARAH: From games of all types, we have a variety.
KAYLA: I think I went pretty board game but Sarah did get a little video game.
SARAH: You did go board game. I went a little video game.
KAYLA: I also went towards the end, had a revelation about a game that I loved as a kid. And then I couldn’t remember the name and then it just came to me.
SARAH: I’m happy for you.
KAYLA: It was incredible.
SARAH: Good. Okay. I have a couple board games I guess I have some more—it doesn’t matter. Let’s just dive in. We’re going to start of course with my man Plum. Professor Plum from the board game Clue. What did we decide last time?
KAYLA: I think we said gay ace.
SARAH: Gay ace? That’s right that’s definitely right. Definitely a gay ace icon. An academic. A lovely fella.
KAYLA: He has really pointy hair.
SARAH: Probably didn’t commit the murder, but if he did, he did a really good job of it.
KAYLA: He also probably did it for a good reason. You know?
SARAH: I agree. He also probably doesn’t murder without any motive. You know? Not just a rogue murderer. Not going to murder any random fella in the house.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Especially if it’s their house.
KAYLA: Yeah cause that’s just messy.
SARAH: Cause the person who dies in Clue is the owner of the house, so.
KAYLA: That takes some guts to murder someone when you’re a guest.
SARAH: When you’re a guest in their home, yeah. While we’re on the topic of Clue, I’d also like to go into the topic of Miss Scarlet. Now, when I was looking for pictures of Miss Scarlet to use as a reference, I discovered that in some recent iterations, they’ve made her blonde. That’s incorrect. We’re talking about the Miss Scarlet who has very dark hair. It’s black in this image I have here. Blonde Miss Scarlet is a fraud. I would say, I may have mentioned this very briefly when we were talking before. I think Miss Scarlet has impeccable ace vibes where it’s like, she’s really sexualized but it’s other people sexualizing her.
KAYLA: It’s very Jessica Rabbit I think. A lot of people headcanon Jessica Rabbit as ace because you never see her actually talk about sex, it’s just other people sexualizing her. I do get that vibe with Miss Scarlet as well.
SARAH: I think she’s very much a—whether she does or doesn’t have sex is not my problem.
(5:00)
KAYLA: I don’t know if she’s aro though.
SARA: She might not be aro but this is aspec vibes not specifically arospec vibes.
KAYLA: No I know I was just bringing it up.
SARAH: Yeah, yeah.
KAYLA: Is that allowed on this podcast?
SARAH: No it’s not. It’s not. We’re actually aro exclusionary.
KAYLA: Yeah. Yeah.
SARAH: Just going to remind the listeners I am aro. I’m allowed to say that shit. Yeah no I think her vibes are very aspec and she probably did commit the murder and I am proud of her for it. I personally always play as Miss Scarlet. And when I say I play as Miss Scarlet, my family does not play Clue right. We basically go straight to guessing. We don’t actually roll the dice and move around. Cause fuck that shit.
KAYLA: How do you do that? With what clues do you guess with?
SARAH: The whole time you’re all just guessing randomly anyway.
KAYLA: No you’re not. That’s not true.
SARAH: Okay, my family takes Clue very seriously and we have—there’s a whole system. My sister always beats me by one turn and i’s so frustrating.
KAYLA: Okay but here’s the thing about Clue. It’s not random guessing. You go through all the rules and find clues and you’re able to cross people off and basically it’s like a process of elimination. So how do you do that?
SARAH: Right. We do the process of elimination by, when we play it, is you get your cards and you see what you have and then I’m like, “Kayla, I think it was Miss Scarlet in the conservatory with the bazooka.” And if you have any of those cards, you have to show me one of them and if you don’t then you say you don’t.
KAYLA: Okay so you’re just playing Go Fish but for adults.
SARAH: But it’s not Go Fish because it’s super strategic because sometimes you can figure out what cards other people have by what cards they show to other people.
KAYLA: Yeah that’s Go Fish Sarah.
SARAH: No, it’s very intense. It’s so strategic.
KAYLA: It’s just using your eyes to see what cards someone shows someone else.
SARAH: The only person who sees the card is the person who asked.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: Kayla. Anyone who has played Clue with me knows that we take this very seriously in the Costello household.
KAYLA: I don’t not believe you.
SARAH: And it is not Go Fish. It is not fucking Go Fish. It’s more strategic when you’re not rolling dice because you don’t have to worry about luck to get you around the board. You can just use your brain.
KAYLA: Mm hmm.
SARAH: I don’t like the energy you’re giving off.
KAYLA: I don’t like the energy you’re giving off.
SARAH: I’m upset. I’m very upset.
KAYLA: Can I go?
SARAH: Yes you can.
KAYLA: Okay I wanted to start off with Candyland because I feel like that was an essential game in my childhood. I don’t remember much about it or the characters but here we go. First we have Lord Licorice.
SARAH: Hmm.
KAYLA: He’s wearing black, he’s wearing a very long red handlebar mustache. He looks very evil and angry and bad.
SARAH: I don’t know he looks kind of like a fun pirate to me. A fun puritan pirate.
KAYLA: He looks so angry.
SARAH: Yeah puritans were angry all the time I feel.
KAYLA: Well I don’t think he’s fun. The vibes I’m giving him is definitely gay but probably suppressing it and probably an aphobe.
SARAH: Yeah I feel like that’s unfortunately—it’s the puritan vibes I think that’s giving me that impression.
KAYLA: It’s the puritan for me.
SARAH: Okay. I didn’t know who Lord Licorice was. So I saw that you put this in the doc and I was like, I don’t know who this is but I think your assessment is correct.
KAYLA: I can’t remember if there’s a bad character in Candyland but I feel like it’s probably him. Cause the rest of them are way more fun.
SARAH: That’s fair. That’s fair. Do you want to do your next one?
(10:00)
KAYLA: I will. My next one is also from Candyland. Princess Frostine. That’s fun. Instead of frosting, it’s Frostine. I picked a picture for reference of the old Candyland. In the newer Candyland, we’ll do the old Candyland first, she has blue hair, blue crown, a blue septer thing, her dress looks kind of like a cupcake dress. She looks kind of like a teenager. In the newer one she looks older, blonde hair, isn’t as whimsical.
SARAH: What’s the point of that? It’s a fucking board game for children that involves large candies and sweets.
KAYLA: I mean, I know. I think she has strong aroace vibes. But I also think the big reason I think that is cause in the picture I picked for reference she looks a lot like Elsa.
SARAH: Oh, I guess. I don’t know.
KAYLA: Either way, those are the vibes I have.
SARAH: Okay, I’ll let you have that. I mean, she’s not giving me strong vibes in any different direction, so, I accept. I also like how her hair is kind of see-through.
KAYLA: It’s absolutely see-through.
SARAH: Like, how does that work, you know?
KAYLA: Uh, magic. I think I’m going to try to put all these pictures in a Google folder and put a link in the episode notes so you all can see them.
SARAH: So that you can all see the pictures we’re specifically talking about.
KAYLA: Cause this is an audio medium and I do understand that.
SARAH: This is the radio, bitches. Okay. My next one is Wario. I think Wario is an aphobe.
KAYLA: Wario of the Mario—
SARAH: Of the Mario Brothers.
KAYLA: Can you please describe Wario for anyone who doesn’t—
SARAH: So he is a short, stout but also seems to have some large muscles, Italian man with a mustache that’s very—
KAYLA: Huge butt chin. Massive.
SARAH: Huge butt chin. A mustache that is very zigzaggy and pointy and a nose that is inexplicably bubblegum pink.
KAYLA: Blue eyeshadow?
SARAH: I guess.
KAYLA: Something there.
SARAH: Very strong eyebrows looking angry and a hat with a W on it of course, for Wario. I’m realizing now that his gloves, it’s interesting that they chose—
KAYLA: Also have a W.
SARAH: It’s interesting that they chose to put the open part of the W towards the fingers.
KAYLA: Might look like an M.
SARAH: And that’s Mario, of course. And he has these little feet where he’s wearing these—thy look like clogs—
KAYLA: They look like little elf shoes.
SARAH: Yeah. Uhhhh.
KAYLA: So you think he’s an aphobe?
SARAH: I think he’s an aphobe. I think he was culturally raised that way. Maybe we’d gotten to him earlier in life, we could have maybe, you know stopped it.
KAYLA: You know the move Back to the Future? You know Biff?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Biff is like the guy that makes fun of Marty’s dad, he’s the mean bully in town. Wario gives me Biff vibes. This is all very, anyway.
SARAH: Yeah that’s fair.
KAYLA: You know what’s interesting though is I do think Waluigi who is Wario’s counterpart, I think Waluigi is very queer.
SARAH: Hmm, I could see it. I think I could see that.
KAYLA: And I think Wario is kind of holding him back. Waluigi’s afraid to come out because of Wario.
SARAH: Wario’s like that family member who’s like no you can’t do that in his family. My next one, it’s two but they go together. So I have Mabel from Animal Crossing along with her sister Sable. I did not include their other sister because I didn’t want to.
KAYLA: Okay! Oh!
SARAH: So Mabel and Sable work at the clothing shop, Able Sisters.
KAYLA: They are hedgehogs.
SARAH: They are hedgehogs. Mabel looks a little bit like Sonic now that I think about it.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Like a cutesy Sonic.
KAYLA: Blue hedgehog.
SARAH: And Sable is like that and has freckles that’s nice. I think Mabel is definitely— a lot of aspec vibes from Mabel personally. She’s a friendly little woman. And she’s great. And I think she has very aspec vibes. Sable is obviously lesbian. She is just a soft shy sapphic bitch. We love her in this house.
KAYLA: I feel like she’d be a very cottagecore lesbian.
SARAH: Oh absolutely. She’s a cottagecore lesbian. She could still be ace though. I think the vibes remain high. But she’s definitely like a sapphic ace.
KAYLA: I can see that.
SARAH: She could not more clearly be a lesbian. I love her very much.
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: If you talked to her every day, you will become friends. And so we are friends. Have I played Animal Crossing in literal months? No, but we’re friends.
KAYLA: Yeah I haven’t played either but we were starting to become friends when I stopped playing.
SARAH: Yeah. So you fucking ruined it, you just abandoned her. She was starting to trust you and you fucking left her out to dry.
KAYLA: I did leave her specifically yes. Anyway my next one is Grandma Nut. She is from Candyland also, though I do find that to be utter bullshit because nuts are not candy.
SARAH: I mean there can be candy with nuts in them but she’s just decorated with peanuts.
KAYLA: She’s a larger, very Molly Weasley-looking lady. Larger, red, curly hair. She doesn’t look like a grandma, she’s not old enough. But she has this orange dress, yellow apron but the orange dress has nuts printed on it. She has a bunch of nuts in her pockets on her necklace. It’s not a candy, folks. But she’s very sweet and loving looking. I feel very comforted by her.
SARAH: She’s like that nice aunt, like that eccentric aunt.
KAYLA: This is what I would say. I don’t think she’s a grandma. She’s an aunt. She’s an Aunt Nut, and she’s your unmarried cool aunt. And I said she’s a wlw ace. She’s also sapphic I think.
SARAH: Yeah, I can see some sapphic vibes. It is interesting that she’s named Grandma Nut though.
KAYLA: She looks nothing like a grandma.
SARAH: Yeah I mean like, theoretically could be a grandma if she had a child very young and her child had a child very young.
KAYLA: Usually when characters are a grandma they have the white hair, that’s tied up in the little poof.
SARAH: They should have called her Auntie Nut.
KAYLA: Anti nut. Which is how I feel about candy with nuts in it. Anti.
SARAH: It’s also how some aces feel about sex.
KAYLA: And there we have it. My next one is my last Candyland one. It’s Mr. Mint. He kind of looks like a reindeer, but a person. You have a very red nose. I mean, you see it. Wearing red overalls, like a red and white striped shirt and a hat, so you know, peppermint obviously. He’s a himbo. Absolutely. And my initial reaction was that he was a thembo. But the name says Mr. Mint, which doesn’t mean that their pronouns are he/him but it says it in the name and I don’t want to disrespect what he has chosen for his name.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: A bo of some sort, I think aro but probably not ace is the vibes I’m picking up.
SARAH: A bo as in like himbo, I understand. I was confused for a moment there. I’m a little bit worried about his arms, they look like they’re a little bit chilly. A gap between his gaps and his sleeves.
KAYLA: Yeah but he is too stupid to know.
SARAH: You’re right. My next one is the Monopoly Man. I think the Monopoly Man is so profoundly unaspec. He thrives off of capitalism and debt. And as we all know, aspecs can’t owe money. Now, the Monopoly Man, to me, also looks like the Pringles Guy. Therefore, the Pringles Guy is also not at all aspec.
KAYLA: Yeah he is just very not queer at all.
SARAH: Yeah he’s just like, “I’m an old white guy and I’m a banker.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: None of that bullshit.
KAYLA: I bet he has some incredibly queer grandkids though.
SARAH: Who like to spite him.
KAYLA: I’m strongly getting that vibe. And his wife is probably really chill and probably also bi.
SARAH: And probably smokes a lot of weed but secretly.
(20:00)
KAYLA: But yeah. Anyway that’s his life story.
SARAH: My next one are the little people in Life. The board game of Life. You know, in Life, your thing is a little car and you add people to it when you get married and have kids or whatever. And there’s little pink people for women. And there’s little blue people for men. Barely people. I think this is way too normative to be properly aspec. The strong gendering.
KAYLA: You know what I never thought about. I haven’t played life in a while but I’m pretty sure when you play Life, you have no choice in whether you get married or not.
SARAH: I don’t think you do, no.
KAYLA: I’m pretty sure you get to a certain point in the game and you’re married. And getting kids is by chance. It’s by landing on a certain square. You could end up with no kids, but you also have no choice. O
SARAH: Or you could end up with four kids.
KAYLA: Or you could have five cars full of kids.
SARAH: You’d need to get a minivan.
KAYLA: I want someone to remake Life but queer. And you have to move through all the queer milestones, you know?
SARAH: Hmm, that’d be interesting.
KAYLA: Like questioning your sexuality, figuring it out, questioning your gender, maybe figuring it out. Getting a dog.
SARAH: I also like how in this picture we have we can see two of the spots. One of them says “payday” and the next one says “baby boy.” I like the thought process that paydays and having babies happens at about the same frequency.
KAYLA: Yeah, no.
SARAH: Cause that’s realistic I think. You know, you can really only have a payday once every nine months at max.
KAYLA: Or, you have a baby twice a month.
SARAH: Yeah I guess you can have babies six months apart if you had a premie payday.
KAYLA: A premie payday, interesting.
SARAH: Yeah, that’s all. I think way too normative to be properly aspec.
KAYLA: Yeah, I feel that. My next one is Susan from Guess Who. I have a picture of Susan from old Guess Who. I know there’s new versions of Guess Who.
SARAH: Very rosy cheeks, definitely has had a nose job.
KAYLA: Absolutely the skinniest nose, I can barely see it. Very round, red cheeks, the round it looks like when you get your cheeks done.
SARAH: Like Santa, like Santa cheeks.
KAYLA: Yes. Very blue eyeshadow, skinny lil eyebrows. I’ve said in my note here, “should be named Karen, what a bitch.”
SARAH: Yeah, here’s the thing. She’s a Karen but she also looks so much like Susan. She’s a Susan. She’s a Susan of a Karen.
KAYLA: I am not getting any aspec vibes from her. I think she’s an absolute soccer mom. I think she is unhappily married. She hates her husband but she has money.
SARAH: She jokes to her friends about killing her husband. And she doesn’t mean it. But also if her husband died she wouldn’t care.
KAYLA: You know what I love about Guess Who is the new way people are playing Guess Who where—
SARAH: They put their friends in?
KAYLA: That’s fun too. But people asking very obscure questions like, “does your person look like a Republican” or “does you person look like they would listen to Harry Styles.”
SARAH: Oh my god, that’s so funny.
KAYLA: That’s a new way I’ve seen people on TikTok playing and I love that very much.
SARAH: Good, good, good good. I love that.
KAYLA: You have more than me do you want to go again?
SARAH: My next one is Pacman. I think Pacman is very un-aspec because he is so attracted to ghosts that his singular goal in life is to consume them.
KAYLA: I don’t know that has that has anything to do with—
SARAH: He’s very attracted to ghosts.
KAYLA: I don’t think attraction—I understand Sarah that you have never experienced attraction and maybe you think it feels like hunger. And I suppose maybe it does in some sense. Sarah, I’m here to tell you that what Pacman’s experiencing is most likely not attraction to the ghosts and maybe—
SARAH: Hunger?
KAYLA: Hatred and most likely hunger. Because he eats them. And I personally have never eaten someone alive that I’m attracted to.
(25:00)
SARAH: Here’s my perspective. I think when he consumes the ghosts, he is just taking names. It’s like when people go through people in a sex way. That’s how I view Pacman. So they die.
KAYLA: You think of it like a Black Widow spider, who just like.
SARAH: Yeah, yeah, uh huh. He’s so attracted to ghosts that he’s insatiable.
KAYLA: No he’s not.
SARAH: He has to eat them. And also maybe have sex with them, it’s unclear. I’m not sure what his genitalia situation is. Or his reproductive system. But.
KAYLA: Maybe his tongue is his peepus. I’m incredibly not with you here.
SARAH: Well my next one is Ms. Pacman. So for a very long time, I thought it was MS Pacman and I was like what is the MS for. Turns out it’s a woman.
KAYLA: Wait what? You didn’t know Ms. Pacman was the woman version of woman you thought it was MS Pacman?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Clearly they made it a woman—look it has eyelashes.
SARAH: I had never seen her though. I had just seen it written as MS Pacman. And I was like what is the MS for. Anyway. No aspec vibes but she’s really queering the system because she’s chasing that attraction, you know?
KAYLA: She’s not. It’s not what they’re doing.
SARAH: Yeah that’s what she’s doing.
KAYLA: It’s not.
SARAH: I feel that’s super duper what she’s doing.
KAYLA: It’s not. Sarah, people who kill people don’t do it—well, I was going to say don’t do it cause they are attracted to the people. But there are a lot of really awful men out there who do do that so, maybe I’m the idiot.
SARAH: I think you’re the idiot.
KAYLA: Hey Reddit, am I the idiot?
SARAH: Okay let’s move on.
KAYLA: Okay!
SARAH: We just had to stop so I could make a work call. It’s just how we live our life, let’s go.
KAYLA: Just girly things.
SARAH: Just girly things.
KAYLA: Am I next?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay. Now, Tom from Guess Who, the old Guess Who still. I don’t know if they’re from the same version. I don’t know anything.
SARAH: I feel like they might—it doesn’t matter.
KAYLA: Really, nothing matters. Tom is wearing a black turtleneck.
SARAH: Turtled neck.
KAYLA: Turtled neck. He is balding on top. He has the thing where, you know the- the hair on the sides, whatever that is. He has very big roundish glasses, pretty big nose. He’s kind of serving a look to be honest.
SARAH: He really is.
KAYLA: I said gay ace icon because I think he looks like a gay uncle.
SARAH: Certainly. This man has very strong gay ace vibes. He’s like that, was fashionable back in the day, now is balding but still fucking rocks it you know.
KAYLA: Yes. I feel like he’s your cool uncle. These are the vibes I have received from him, directly from god.
SARAH: My brain just provided a really sad backstory for him but I’m not going to go there.
KAYLA: No I need it. You know you can’t say things like that and then not.
SARAH: Given his age, given his style choices.
KAYLA: He’s maybe like 40-ish.
SARAH: Well no I’m thinking, I’m like, oh I bet he had a lovely partner back in the day. And then my brain was like, partner died of AIDS.
KAYLA: Oh Sarah!
SARAH: I know that’s why I said I can’t say it.
KAYLA: I don’t know if he’s that old.
SARAH: But I’m just thinking because he’s not that old, but the image of him is old enough, I would consider him to be older now.
KAYLA: True, now he’s probably real old. Cause this is the old version of Guess Who. Well now I’m depressed, thanks!
SARAH: I told you I wasn’t going to say it but now I guess I’m going to leave it in.
KAYLA: Well you know you can’t be like, I have a thing but I’m not going to—you know that’s not how it works here. It’s like you’ve never met me.
SARAH: Okay, I have three more you have two more.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: I’ll go next. Mine is the default female Mii.
KAYLA: Me as in M-i-i.
SARAH: Like when you’re on the Wii, the console, and you’re making your Mii, this is the default that it gives you. It’s just a white woman with brown hair.
KAYLA: Kind of fucked up, actually.
SARAH: Yeah. This I think, the default female Mii has big Karen energy.
KAYLA: Not as much as Susan.
SARAH: You’re right. Not as much as Susan, but definitely Karen energy. Like young Karen energy, you know. You know she’s going to become a Karen in 5-10 years.
KAYLA: She’s a Karen in training.
SARAH: Yeah, yeah she is. And like, maybe you can still rescue her, but she’s definitely going to try to bring you to the church if you try to talk about these things.
KAYLA: She’s going to gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss you.
SARAH: She’s going to try to sell you green coffee or something.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: She’s definitely in a pyramid scheme.
KAYLA: Okay, in terms of her queer vibes though. I’m guessing a no on that.
SARAH: No on the queer vibes. I think that’s not to say of course that aspecs can’t be Karens or they can’t be in pyramid schemes. But I do think that those aspecs don’t have the vibes of aspec-ery. You know?
(30:00)
KAYLA: That’s fair, yeah.
SARAH: That’s all that I have to say on that front. I’m going to say my next one and we’ll trade off for the last ones. My next ones is the CPU Mii that’s named Matt. You know how when you play games on Wii Sports, there’s computer generated opponents?
KAYLA: Yes. I know Matt. Matt is iconic.
SARAH: This is Matt. His race is ambiguous, he’s not white. He’s very much bald. He has a goatee. He looks displeased with everything.
KAYLA: His eyes are kind of droopy, but I can’t tell if they’re droopy or squinted in an angry way. It’s mysterious.
SARAH: See, I think a lot of people look at Matt and they think he’s angry but I think that’s falling into the angry black man trope.
KAYLA: I think he’s just done with everyone’s shit.
SARAH: Yeah, he’s just done and he’s like why the fuck am I here.
KAYLA: He’s like, this game is forcing me to play tennis with an eight-year-old.
SARAH: He’s like why do my fellow players in Wii baseball, keep fucking missing when the ball—that shouldn’t have been a single that should have been an out. But this bitch over here fucking couldn’t catch the ball.
KAYLA: You know what I think Matt’s backstory was? He was a pro baseball player and had a tragic injury. So now, the only way he can make money is by playing in these stupid games with eight-year-olds that keep rolling through and he’s just so upset.
SARAH: I think he played for the Toronto Blue Jays and he was just really good and he had a career burdened by injury and he could have been—I don’t know why my brain was like the next ARod. For some reason ARod was the first baseball player I thought of.
KAYLA: I don’t know about that.
SARAH: But he really could have made it big but he had just a career plagued by injury and now he’s here and he’s kind of annoyed he has to play against the default Mii Karen.
KAYLA: He has a family to provide for! What’s he going to do?
SARAH: Anyway we have not rated his aspec vibes at all. I think he’s pretty neutral to me. Could go either way.
KAYLA: Yeah, I don’t have a lot of strong feelings about him except for his baseball career. All I know is he plays baseball.
SARAH: That’s more important to him than his sexual or romantic identity.
KAYLA: I think so too.
SARAH: Okay what’s your next one?
KAYLA: My next one is the Hungry Hungry Hippos of the game Hungry Hungry Hippo. They are hippos so I think it’s a little hard to tell. I said that they are four unmarried aros living in a swamp commune.
SARAH: I think that’s correct.
KAYLA: And I don’t regret saying that.
SARAH: I think that pod has lacked in aro representation and I’m glad these four hippos are here, they’re hungry, and they’re just living peacefully in their swamp commune.
KAYLA: See now Sarah here’s what I want you to take note of. Is that these are hippos that are hungry. These are not hippos that are not attracted to the little balls that you play with in the game.
SARAH: They’re not attracted to balls, they’re aroaces okay?
KAYLA: I didn’t say they were ace.
SARAH: I think they’re ace. I think two of them are ace.
KAYLA: Which two?
SARAH: I think the blue one and the green one are ace. And I think the red one and the yellow one are questioning maybe.
KAYLA: I think the red one is definitely a lesbian.
SARAH: Oh yeah the red one is homosexual.
KAYLA: I might be saying that because it goes with the vibe of the lesbian flag.
SARAH: I don’t know. I think the yellow one’s bisexual, or pansexual. No straights here is the point.
KAYLA: Uh so, anyway. Those are the hungry, hungry hippos.
SARAH: So my last one is Johnny Cage who was one of the original Mortal Kombat characters. I’ve never actually played Mortal Kombat. No I might have actually played it once in my one class where we talked about video games. I am not super familiar with Mortal Kombat but I do like just the screaming of MORTAL KOMBAT and I read recently an article about the guy who said that, was just in an ad for Mortal Kombat and he didn’t realize his voice was going to be used in a song.
KAYLA: I hope he got paid.
SARAH: I don’t know that he did.
KAYLA: That’s really fucked up.
SARAH: In the interview the person was like, will you say it for me? And he did. Except I was reading a written version of the interview.
KAYLA: How’d they write it?
SARAH: So they just wrote all caps, MORTAL KOMBAT! It was very funny the way it was presented. Anyway, I think Johnny Cage is an absolute homophobe, aphobe. He thinks he’s better. A lot of the other Mortal Kombat characters, as I was looking at them. I think a lot of them give off queer vibes. Especially the female characters. A lot of the male characters are hypermasculine and fuck that shit. I think there are quite a few Mortal Kombat characters that really have those queer vibes and Johnny Cage just doesn’t.
KAYLA: Hmm.
SARAH: He’s just a white guy wearing sunglasses. He’s a hypermasculine white guy in sunglasses. He’s definitely suppressing something. But we’ll never know what it is because it is so far suppressed, so far down.
KAYLA: It could be anything. It could be not sexuality—it’s probably not sexuality-related at all, but it is something.
SARAH: There’s something he’s repressing and we’ll never truly know what it is.
KAYLA: He has a secret is the point we’re trying to make.
SARAH: Maybe he doesn't fully know what his secret is.
KAYLA: He probably doesn’t know he has a secret.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: But he does.
SARAH: He definitely does. I mean look at that face and tell me that’s not a man with secrets.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Mmkay, last one.
KAYLA: My last one and a very similar vibe for sure is the princess from Pretty Pretty Princess. Did you ever play this as a child? Tell me right now.
SARAH: It sounds familiar, maybe. I don’t know that we owned it but that’s not to say I didn’t play it.
KAYLA: This I dug out of my brain.
SARAH: Out of the recesses of your mind.
KAYLA: This game so I don’t remember how it works. It’s some kind of board games but as you move through, you get to put on these little plastic princess accessories. There’s clip-on earrings, you have shitty little beaded bracelets, you have a crown. I’m pretty sure it came with this game but it could have been some other dumb game I had where also there’s fingernails. They were the type of rings you don’t put all the way down on your finger, it goes to the first knuckle.
SARAH: When she says finger nail she means fake nails, yes not like rogue fingernail clippings?
KAYLA: It was an old woman’s finger nail clipping. No. I don’t know how to describe it. It was this little plastic ring type thing and it has a little fake nail on it and it would only go to the first part of your finger so it looked like—you get what I’m saying?
SARAH: It looks like a finger nail.
KAYLA: Yeah but it was really tight cause it only went on that first fingernail. I just have vivid memories of the feeling of those shitty, awful plastic nails on. I don’t know. Anyway, this just really has me in my feels. The princess on the box I think she’s a femme lesbian aroace.
SARAH: So an oriented aroace?
KAYLA: Yes. She’s oriented, sapphic. She’s an aroace. I don’t know that she loves all of the accessories. I do think that she’s femme. I don’t know she loves all the accessories there. She’s a princess she has to do all the bracelets and crown and whatever. But yeah those are her vibes.
SARAH: I wholeheartedly agree.
KAYLA: All I want is to play Pretty Pretty Princess now.
SARAH: I’m sure it’d be disappointing if you tried to play it now. Great, Kayla what’s our poll for this week?
KAYLA: Oh my god.
SARAH: Who has the aspec-iest vibes of the characters?
KAYLA: I feel like we need to pick one character so we can post the picture. Or I guess we could do four and have a tweet under the tweet.
SARAH: Let’s do that. I think Miss Scarlet. Hungry Hungry Hippos. Mabel and Sable I think we can put them together I don’t think that’s a problem. And then one more of yours, do you want to do the Pretty Pretty Princess? Do you want it to be Tom?
KAYLA: It’s gotta be Grandma Nut.
SARAH: Okay. It’s going to be Grandma Nut. Okay. Good. Auntie Nut. Anti Nut. That’s really aspec vibes in and of itself. Great, Kayla, what is your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is all of it. And also I think I had something specific. My arms are sore, I went rock climbing in a safe and vaccinated way.
SARAH: No Dean went rock climbing. Kayla didn’t go rock climbing, Dean went rock climbing.
KAYLA: I did go rock climbing.
SARAH: Can’t prove it.
KAYLA: Okay, well, bye.
SARAH: What’s your juice? Oh that was your juice.
KAYLA: No that was my beef because my arms are sore. My juice—I mean it was fun so that was a juice. I had one I just had one. Uhhhhhh...the season finale of Hell’s Kitchen’s on tonight. By the time you’re listening to this it already happened but that’s fun. Uhhhhhhmmmm, I just had one.
SARAH: Okay that’s enough. If you think of it, just give me a holler. My juice, let me set the scene. I’m making eggs and also toasting a bagel. I’m listening to the Golden Ratio podcast and I hear my girl Jen on the Golden Ratio podcast, refer to the dog Manchego as Cheggs, which they do sometimes, they refer to him as Cheggs. And it came to me. They give the dogs waffles sometimes and I was like, waffle manchego is cheggo my eggo. And so what did I do? With her voice in my ear as I’m listening to this podcast, I DM’d Jen and I said, Jen please have you ever considered waffle manchego as cheggo my eggo. This is at 10.02 am. I got a response at 10.02 am. Immediate. They get a lot of DMs. She had been talking on the pod about how she gets a lot of DMs, she can’t answer them. But this one she was like, this is crucial.
KAYLA: She said, this is important.
SARAH: And she said, “I had not and I’m kind of mad about this. Cheggo Eggo.” And I was like, I’m so glad I brought this to your attention.
KAYLA: Seems very important.
SARAH: I hope this comes up in the snaps in the future and I can personally know that I was the start of that.
KAYLA: You were the one, you did that.
SARAH: My beef is the fucking Hollywood Reporter article where some Hollywood execs go on background and they’re like, “actually maybe Scott Rudin is good.” Fuck you. I hope every time you go and pitch something for the rest of your life they spit in your face.
KAYLA: Oh my god.
SARAH: Do you want to know one of the anonymous quotes from this article?
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: “I’m not condoning this behavior, but it’s hardly news that Rudin is a horrendous bully and if you work for him, it’s on you.”
KAYLA: What the fuck, dog?
SARAH: There were four anonymous quotes, and three of them started with, “I’m not condoning it… but.”
KAYLA: What the hell.
SARAH: Let me just read you all of these quotes. “I’m not condoning it but there are very few people with his level of taste and access to material.” Fuck you. “I’m not condoning it but he trained a lot of people who went on to have successful careers.” Who fucking cares? They can still have their successful careers. “What are we going to do? Cancel everyone? You garbages.”
KAYLA: Jesus Christ.
SARAH: Anyway, TL;DR, Scott Rudin is a Hollywood executive who also produces on Broadway who is just, the worst.
KAYLA: Didn’t he get on the no work list though?
SARAH: I don’t know he’s garbage and people have known he’s garbage for a long time. It’s finally being talked about.
KAYLA: I feel like it was him I saw people talk about that he was on the no work list. Maybe it was just for Broadway though, I don’t know.
SARAH: Maybe.
KAYLA: Kind of wild they have a no work list.
SARAH: He’s a fucking garbage person and all these Hollywood execs are like, “actually maybe it’s fine.” Literally the name of this article is Why Some Hollywood Execs Are Hoping for Scott Rudin to Return. Fuck you. I was going to say I hope all of your movies tank but that’s not fair to the other people who are working on the movie who actually need the work so I hope you get kicked out of the fucking academy or something I don’t know.
KAYLA: Anyway that’s all.
SARAH: You can tell us about your beef, your juice, my brain is like your least favorite Scott Rudin project on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a patreon - patreon.com/soundsfakepod. As a note, this is the last week we are going to be reading the patrons as we have for the last while. We will be posting in our Patreon for all of the patrons. Are we asking some opinions or are we saying, this is what we’re going to do?
KAYLA: I think we’re going to propose our plan and if there are strong negative feelings, we’ll go from there.
SARAH: Yeah. So we’re going to be making some changes. Next week, there will be some changes to how we say the patrons, but we still appreciate all of you. And it’s just because there are so many of you who are being so supportive that we have to make these changes because the patron reads is taking four minutes every podcast and that’s kind of absurd. But thank you all, you’re all delightful and we love you. Our $5 patrons, one last time in this form, who knows how they’ll be appreciated in the future but Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Simona Sajmon, Jamie Jack, Jessica Shea, Ria Faustino, Daniel Walker, Livvy, Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W, Savannah Cozart—remember when I tried to do this without breathing, literally impossible now, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP, Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Amberle Istar, Rachel, Kate Costello, John, Ariel Laxo, Ellie, Tessa, MattiousT, Chris Lauretano, Sam, Kelly, Scott Ainslis, Orla Nieve Eisley, Julianne, Lost In Space, Colleen Walsh, Mattie, Super Sarah, BAGEL, Edward Hayes-Holgate, Emily M., Elizabeth Wheeler and ffinasfs, who said on Tumblr they really enjoyed hearing me say ffinasfs so I’m glad that you enjoyed that. And I don’t think you corrected me, so ffinasfs. Our $10 patrons are Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote me playing D&D, anonymous who would like to promote Halloween, spooky! Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cass who would like to promote the best of luck on the journey of self-identification, Doug Rice who would like to promote “Church Too,” by Emily Joy, H. Valdis, Purple Chickadee, who would like to promote using they as a gender neutral singular pronoun, Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote Reclaim the Night, The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia, Ari K. who would like to promote Thought Slime, Mattie who would like to promote The Union Series by T.H. Hernandez, Derek and Carissa who would like to promote the overthrow of heteronormativity in support of Melody the hamster, Aaron like to promote free forehead kisses, Khadir who would like to promote cats named Gnocchi Feta Fettuccine, Potater who would like to promote potatoes, ChangelingMX who would like to promote starshipchangeling.net, and Sarah Kujawa who would like to promote her dogs’ Instagram @aviatthehusky and David Jay who would like to promote “Emergent Strategy” by Adrienne Maree Brown and The Stubby Tech who would like to promote checking patreon to make sure you're actually supporting the podcasts you think you are. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote free mom hugs, Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote being in unions and IWW, we support unions. Martin Chiesel who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone’s Special and No One is, Leila, who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people including those hungry hungry hippos, Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia, Sherronda J Brown, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote Lewis University’s Writing Center @writingcenterlu, Andrew Hillum would like to promote their loved ones getting vaccinations, and Dragonfly who would like to promote having so many wonderful patrons that we have to change how we appreciate them.
KAYLA: The end of an era.
SARAH: I know. That’s not to say we won’t be reading names in the future. It’ll just be different. And $20 patron, Sarah T, who would like to promote long walks outside. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.
SARAH: Okay I will.
KAYLA: Okay!
(Singing) I want you. No. You want me, I want you baby. Um Sarah I hope you enjoy listening to this part of my recording. Uh you probably will skip past it. (Phone alarm) Ope my phone went off. (Singing) You want me, I want you baby. My sugar boo. I’m levitating. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.