Ep 143: Loveless feat. Alice Oseman!
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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 demi-straight girl, that's me, Kayla.
ALICE: And an aro-ace author and illustrator, Alice Oseman.
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, Loveless.
ALL: Sounds Fake, But Okay.
[Intro music]
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod! You had all this time.
KAYLA: No, I know, okay, I tried really hard for the past couple days to think of one that had to do with the book, and the best I could come up with is m’ixed emotions. I couldn't come up with a better one.
SARAH: That makes it seem like you have mixed emotions on the book.
KAYLA: No, I don't have mixed emotions, the characters have mixed emotions.
ALICE: That is true.
KAYLA: Not me. I have very strong love emotions for the book.
ALICE: Good.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: It's the best I could do this week, I'm sorry.
SARAH: Anyway, Kayla and Alice, hello, what are we talking about this week? We're here with Alice Oseman.
ALICE: Hello, happy to be here.
KAYLA: Yeah, this week we're talking about Alice Oseman, who I'm sure everyone knows, wrote Loveless, which is an amazing book that came out. So, Alice, thank you for coming and talking to us. It's very exciting.
ALICE: Yeah. Thanks. I'm happy to be here.
SARAH: Yay. Sublime. And to our listeners, we are going to not spoil this book for you.
KAYLA: We're going to do our best.
SARAH: Well, if we do, I'll cut it out of the pod, Kayla.
KAYLA: Well, fine.
SARAH: But we're… this is going to be spoiler free, but we are going to be talking about the excellent book that is Loveless. I cried a lot.
KAYLA: I also cried.
ALICE: Good.
KAYLA: Which isn't saying much because I feel like we both cry very easily.
SARAH: We're both, we're both criers.
KAYLA: But I did cry.
SARAH: What I have to emphasize is that I cannot understate how much I cried. Like, my face was dry because there was so much salt on my face from crying.
KAYLA: Wow.
SARAH: Which I…
KAYLA: Yeah, let's look what you did.
SARAH: I think has a lot to do with the fact that I am also aro-ace and my experience of aroaceness is almost identical to Georgia's in the book. And so that definitely had something to do with it. But I did cry a lot.
KAYLA: Should we do a quick intro of what the book is?
SARAH: Yes, we should.
KAYLA: And kind of what it's about, just so anyone who's unfamiliar knows?
ALICE: I can give a quick little pitch of it if you like.
SARAH: Sure
KAYLA: Yeah, I'm sure you've been doing that a lot.
ALICE: I really have. Okay, so Loveless is the story of Georgia who's 18 years old. She has never kissed anyone. She's never had a crush, but she loves romance. She really wants to have that perfect teenage dream romance. So, she decides when she goes off to university, she decides she's going to find this perfect romance and have her perfect love story. But that doesn't quite go to plan. Instead, she goes on this journey of sexuality and discovers that she might be aromantic asexual. So, there you go.
SARAH: And it's a grand time, kids.
KAYLA: It's so good. Which I think leads to our first question of Alice, have you been stalking us? Because the characters, like Sarah said, it's exactly Sarah's journey. And also, we were roommates in college and went through all of this same stuff.
SARAH: We were in a theater org.
KAYLA: Yeah, we were in a new theater org our freshman year. And we did actually play Quidditch. We did actually go through with it. There's just so much that I was like, I think Alice is stalking us. See, I guess that's not really a question, more a statement of I think you're stalking us.
SARAH: Yeah, no. Kayla, do you have anything to elaborate on that or are you just going to leave it at I think you're stalking us?
ALICE: No, it was just very bizarre, but I've also seen a lot of people online talking about that George's experience is so close to theirs. And that it's just very touching to like, I don’t know, an aro-ace audience.
SARAH: Yeah. It's exciting to have aro-ace representation because there isn't a ton of it. I had the experience earlier this year where I experienced aro-ace representation properly for the first time when I watched Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Little Women. And I just cried the entire time because it's not explicitly talked about, but the way that Joe's arc is represented in that movie was just so clearly aro-ace to me.
ALICE: Yes
SARAH: Before that I was like, oh yeah, representation is important, but I'm far enough along on my journey that I personally don't need it. It's really for other people. And then I watched Little Women and then I cried the whole time. And then I had the exact same experience with Loveless where I just cried the entire time.
ALICE: Yeah. No, I think in young adult fiction, there's really not a lot of aro-ace characters at all. The YA books that I found that have asexual characters are usually romantic asexual characters, which is obviously amazing, but quite a different experience, I think, to being aro-ace. So that's part of the reason why I wanted to write Loveless.
KAYLA: Yeah, I was kind of wondering why now was the time, I guess, that you decided, because you've obviously written several other books. So, I was kind of curious why now and why with this book you were like, this is the one I want to focus on these sexualities.
ALICE: Yeah, I think for several reasons. Firstly, definitely me being more comfortable in my identity has made me obviously feel comfortable writing the book, which hasn't really been the case before this one. But also, just because of the themes of this book, like even before I knew I wanted to write a sort of coming out story, I wanted to write a book about the power of friendship and how friendships can be as important as romance. And then those two ideas kind of clicked together and became Loveless, I guess.
SARAH: Nice
KAYLA: Yeah, I think that's such a big part of the aro and ace communities is kind of the importance of friendship and platonic friendship. So, I thought that was just a really powerful theme in the book. And it was very much the maybe the real treasure was the friends we had along the way, but in an actual non cheesy, very good way.
SARAH: I guess obviously you've written other books before, but do you find it difficult as an aro-ace person to write romance or is it just something that you're just kind of like, yeah, this is fine?
ALICE: Honestly, not really. I get this question a lot and I really don't feel like I struggle with it any more than any other writer would. I don't know why that is, but I don't know what to say there. I don't find it any more difficult than any other sort of relationship, I guess.
SARAH: Yeah, I mean, me personally as an aro-ace person who is also a writer, I feel like romance and sex are like so ingrained in society that I have such a good grasp on it that even if I don't feel it myself, I can replicate it.
ALICE: Yeah, I definitely feel the same.
KAYLA: So, this is all really rather performative too, flirting and relationships and stuff. I think it's very easy to copy because it is such an outward gesture thing, it's easy even if you're not experiencing it yourself to be like, oh yeah, these things happen, I can kind of like pull from them.
ALICE: Yeah, exactly.
SARAH: And as someone who also is a shipper myself, I’m like, I know what makes a good romantic relationship. So that's just much like Georgia.
KAYLA: Sarah is also a big fan of fanfic.
SARAH: I'm writing one right now.
ALICE: Dare I ask what fandom?
SARAH: It's Schitt's Creek.
ALICE: Amazing! I love Schitt's Creek.
SARAH: Yeah, it's wonderful.
KAYLA: Sarah is obsessed with Schitt's Creek.
SARAH: No, I had this problem where like I have… I want to go into TV writing. And so, I'm an assistant right now, but I'm still doing writing on the side. And so, I have stuff that I'm doing. But then this idea for a fanfic came to my mind and it just took me over. And I was like, I have to write this. And so now I'm like, I'm trying to write it as fast as possible so that I can go back to writing for my career. But here we are.
[00:10:00]
KAYLA: More questions about writing. I know that you've said online and also in the acknowledgments of the book that writing it was really difficult, I'm wondering what made it difficult? Was it the fact that it was so personal to your own experience? I can imagine there was a certain amount of pressure because there is so little rep to be like, well, now I have to make this one piece of rep that there actually is really good.
ALICE: Yeah, yeah. So many different reasons why it was just extremely hard. Like, obviously I wanted it to be really perfect and good representation. It's my fourth book and I feel like I just get more stressed about how good they are the more books I write.
SARAH: There's expectations that you have to...
ALICE: Yeah, exactly. And the fact that it was taking a lot from my own experiences made it a really difficult book to plan and figure out what the story was because I was drawing some things from my own life and having to come up with other things and trying to make those things fit together. It's just very challenging. And then trying to craft the narrative that I wanted it to be, which was kind of different in some ways from my own journeys. It was just complicated and difficult to plot and it took me so long to figure out what the story was going to be. And I had to rewrite it several times. It was just a very stressful experience.
SARAH: Did you ever have trouble separating yourself from it? I don't know how much of yourself you see in Georgia or how similar you are, but did you ever have trouble putting a line between you and the story?
ALICE: Yeah, I definitely did. Georgia is not me. I wouldn't say the story is autobiographical, but her identity is the same as mine basically, and a lot of things that she thinks and has experienced is similar to me. But I wanted it to be a really positive story. I wanted it to not dwell too long on the really dark moments of Georgia's story and move towards a really positive, hopeful ending, which is quite difficult for me because I had a much longer, not as great coming out experience, but figuring myself out. For me, it took a lot longer and it was a lot more difficult than Georgia finds it. Loveless takes place in the space of one year, whereas for me it was a lot longer. The challenge for me was trying to express the different feelings, starting with her feeling really unsure and not really liking herself and then going towards feeling more positive about her identity and not trying to dwell too much on the dark stuff, which I think I have a tendency to do just because of my personality. It was challenging but hopefully it turned out okay.
KAYLA: I think that's really great though because I think there's so many, like when there is representation of asexuality, it is very easy to kind of move in that dark direction of like, oh, it's so hard to figure out who I am, which like, of course, that's true for people. But it's hard. You don't want every representation of asexuality or aromanticism to just be really sad because that's just not fun. And like, we aren't all sad all the time.
ALICE: Yeah
SARAH: We're just sometimes sad. Some of the times, just like a normal amount.
KAYLA: I was wondering, since you're talking about like rewriting everything so much, so many times, do you know, like, kind of from when you first started, like, maybe thinking about this until publishing, like, how long did it take you to write the book?
ALICE: I started planning it, like, pretty much immediately after my third book. So that was May 2018. And then I finished it in around May this year. So, it was about two years in total. But I didn't have a finished first draft until the start of this year, which, yeah, that was just… so a year and a half of hell, basically.
SARAH: I can imagine. I can imagine.
KAYLA: I mean, I don't want to tell you that your hell was worth it, but it is a very good book. So, I mean, it did turn out very well.
ALICE: Good
SARAH: For us, for those of us who just got to read it and didn't have to go through the hell, we're grateful.
ALICE: Good. I'm glad.
SARAH: You alluded to this a little bit earlier about how you kind of had a longer experience in terms of coming to terms with your sexuality and how you didn't write this book earlier because you weren't quite as comfortable with your sexuality yet. I guess what was your own process in terms of the figuring out your aro-ace and coming to terms with it?
ALICE: Wow, how to condense that into one book?
SARAH: It's hard. It's hard. I've had to do it multiple times and it's like, this could take half an hour.
ALICE: Yeah, it was a much longer process. I think for me, at school, I just had no awareness that I wasn't straight. I felt uncomfortable with romance. I didn't have crushes on anyone. I felt uncomfortable with the thought of being with any guys. I just didn't, I had no LGBT education at that point, so I just knew nothing basically. And then at uni, I was a lot more online, I think. I got a lot more into Tumblr and Twitter. So, I feel like my education kind of blossomed at that point and I found out what asexuality was. But then I just had years of being like, you know, I don't know if that's me, I don't know if I'm going to feel differently one day. It was just years of kind of going back and forth and not really knowing for sure who I was. And I don't really know when the point was that I started to feel more comfortable in it and more able to accept that this is who I was and this wasn't really going to change. I cannot pinpoint the time even roughly when that happened, but it was definitely, maybe around the time that I started to work on this book is when I started to feel comfortable, totally comfortable in it. But yeah, so it was a long process, but we made it.
SARAH: You made it, you're here. Yeah, I think for a lot of, especially people who are both aro and ace, it's not like if you are gay or queer in another way where it's like, oh, I definitely have a crush on this person who's the same gender as me. I think it's just a longer process. So, it's, which is annoying.
ALICE: Yeah, it really is.
SARAH: Here we are. I mean, you did kind of touch on how you and Georgia are not the same, but I guess, do you, what parts of Georgia's experience, if you don't mind answering, came from your own experience, I guess?
ALICE: Hmm. I think probably a lot of the internalized stuff. Georgia kind of, in the book, Georgia decides to sort of experiment. I don't really know if I'd say that was the right word, but she does kind of decide, like take active action and decide to like, do certain things to try and figure out if she is definitely these identities. Whereas that is really not me. Like I'm… Georgia is a lot more kind of proactive than me. I'm definitely a lot more introverted. But a lot of the internalized stuff is definitely from me. Like there's a couple of things that are just things that have happened to me. For example, this isn't a spoiler, but in one scene, Georgia does the Kinsey scale test, which if you don't know what the Kinsey scale is, it's basically a scale that goes from exclusively straight to exclusively gay. And then in the middle is like all bi and pan identities. And then Georgia gets X as her answer, which is just like a non-answer that just doesn't mean anything. And she's like, oh, well, what does that mean?
SARAH: When I took it, it literally was like, you have failed. And I was like, oh
ALICE: We can laugh now.
KAYLA: I remember reading that part of the book when Georgia does that. And I was like, oh, she's doing it. There are just so many things that she did, especially on the internet to research asexuality that I was like, yes, we've all done this.
SARAH: Well, yeah, and I think because so much of that internal monologue and the emotional turmoil that she is in, it felt very real because it was coming from a real place from someone who was actually aro-ace, which is, you know, representation is important, but especially when it's written by people who identify that way.
ALICE: Yes
SARAH: We're just going to throw that out there.
KAYLA: I know we don't have this written down, Sarah, but I want to talk about the other characters as well, because they are also very amazing. I also love them very much. So, I guess I'm wondering, where the inspiration for those characters came from and how you kind of decided what you wanted their relationship to Georgia to be, to kind of move forward the plot of the importance of friendship and everything.
[00:20:00]
ALICE: Yeah, so I started obviously with Georgia. And then I knew I wanted her to have a roommate at university who is very opposite to her, like just has very different experiences and attitudes towards sex and romance. So that's how I came up with Rooney, who is Georgia's roommate. She is very kind of like confident and outgoing and she has had a lot of sexual experience and likes to have sex with people, which is absolutely not Georgia at all. But I wanted that to be like the central relationship of the book, just to kind of show that people can have these different experiences and attitudes towards sex and romance and they can still form a really amazing friendship. Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. And there's a lot of queer characters that like aside from Georgia, and I mean that's just realistic because all the queer kids just find each other.
KAYLA: It is true. Yeah, I had a really hard time. I was asking Sarah yesterday or the other day, I was like, which Loveless character am I? Because obviously like Sarah is Georgia.
SARAH: I'm very clearly Georgia.
KAYLA: Yeah. And I as her like college roommate, I was like, I guess I have to be Rooney. But also, I'm demisexual.
SARAH: But you’re demi
KAYLA: So, I was having a very hard time. I'm still trying to figure it out.
SARAH: We're working on it.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: Alice, what has been the greatest platonic romance of your life?
ALICE: Ooh, that's a difficult question. I think I'd probably say, I have several best friends. I don't want to pick my one best friend, but I have one friend called, her name is Mel, and I feel like that is a great platonic romance because we weren't really that close throughout most of school, and then we kind of just grew steadily closer until the very end of school, and then we went on a big holiday with all our friends. And after we left school, that's when we became really, really close friends. So that feels like a romance to me because it had the buildup of when we turned it out well, but now we're best friends.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I feel like that's one of the big things that I took away from the book, and I hope this isn't too spoilery, but as we've been talking about the importance of friendship and the romance of friendship is kind of part of the book. And I'd never, obviously I think friends are great, and doing this podcast has ingrained in me even more the importance of friendship on an even level with romantic relationships.
SARAH: I have banged that into your head, whether you like it or not.
KAYLA: But I had never thought to think about my friendships as the same romantic plot line as a relationship. If you go to date someone, it's like, oh my god, we met in this class, and then we started talking, and then we were flirting, and it's this whole long story of buildup. But I've never thought, even though Sarah and I have an excellent romance story.
SARAH: We have an excellent origin story.
KAYLA: Oh, no, we do. But I'd never really thought to romanticize it in the same way. But it is very romantic, and I feel like friendships deserve to be embellished and romanticized in the same way.
ALICE: Yeah, yeah, I when I wrote my second book, Radio Silence, that focuses on a friendship between the boy and a girl, Alice and Francis. And it's not romantic at all. But I knew I wanted it to have the same structure as a romance. So, I wrote it, they have their kind of like meet cute moment at the start. And then they had this time where they're like just getting to know each other. And then they realizing that they're really, really good friends. And the whole journey of their relationship has the exact same format as you would find in like a romance book or a romance movie, but it's just platonic. But people have really loved their friendships. So yeah, make your friendships just as special.
SARAH: Yeah, I mean, me and Kayla had a meet-cute, basically.
KAYLA: Me and Sarah really did.
SARAH: We met in the same way that Georgia and Rooney did, and that we went in blind and we became roommates. And things got really weird really fast.
KAYLA: And then we were roommates. And then we started the podcast, as you do. I haven't read Radio Silence yet. I'm extremely excited to get it. But I read a quote by you about Radio Silence where you said, like, the characters aren't in a relationship, they're bonded by the podcast they have together. And I was like, God damn it, Alice is stalking us.
ALICE: It's literally you two.
KAYLA: I was like, why is Alice watching our every move and writing a book about it?
SARAH: What does she know that we don't know?
KAYLA: I think Alice might know our future. Alice blink once if that's true. She didn't blink. I don't believe it.
SARAH: I mean, I'm sure that as you've written this book and I'm sure you've done some press for this book that is not with aro-ace podcasts, what has the experience been like talking to allos about this, about this book?
ALICE: Yeah, it's difficult. Some people are okay. I actually had a really good discussion today with someone I'm doing an interview with very soon and they just wanted a little sort of pre-interview. And she came, we just spoke on the phone and she already knew, she'd read half the book, she already knew what asexuality and aromanticism are. And I was like, good, that's how to be prepared for an interview. You don't know what the topic is. But I have had a couple of experiences with interviews where they just kind of ask sort of very basic questions about it and I'm sitting there and suddenly realizing that they just know nothing, like absolutely nothing about asexuality. And it's such a polarizing experience because it makes me feel like almost weird. It makes me feel weird and kind of like they're sort of treating you like you're some kind of weird like niche thing that is odd and they're just, you know, it's difficult to explain but I've had good and bad experiences, I'd say.
SARAH: And then you're not promoting your book, you're doing a Q&A about asexuality. It's just like, well, buy my book.
ALICE: Yeah, please read the book, it's all in there.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it is kind of like what Sarah said, you're like, I'm here to talk about my book and they're like, no, explain these things to me.
SARAH: So, do you really not experience sexual attraction?
ALICE: That's literally it. That is the experience I've had. I've gone to an interview and I've been told that it's going to be about the book and then they're asking very personal questions and I'm like, please, I just want to talk about my book.
SARAH: Yeah. Did you find, like I know obviously this is your fourth book and you had representation and stuff going into this, but did you find that there were hurdles to getting the book made or was it pretty smooth sailing just because of the people around you?
ALICE: I think for me it's been quite smooth and I think I'm very, very lucky that that is the case and it's definitely because I'm an established author and I already have the privilege of an audience. And so, my publisher are quite open to publishing the story that I'd like to write, I guess. But there was a period at the start when I didn't, I was not sure how to sort of bring up with my editor that I wanted it to be an asexual coming out story. Just because I didn't, you know, I didn't know how much you know about it. It was a scary conversation. I'm not good at… I'd say confrontation. I'm not really good at confrontation or like having difficult conversations with people.
SARAH: Me
ALICE: So, I didn't know how I was going to explain to my editor what this book was about when in all likelihood she probably had no idea that this identity even existed. But I was very lucky that my publisher had been very supportive.
SARAH: Yeah, you've got to give the TED talk before you can pitch the book.
ALICE: Yeah, exactly.
SARAH: But luckily, because of stuff like your book, now more people are going to be more familiar and hopefully soon people won't have to TED talk before they pitch.
KAYLA: They'll just be like, here, have you read this book, Loveless? Read that and get back to me. I do think it's a very odd experience to, for your career, have to come out to someone. It's such a personal thing. And obviously, I think for a lot of writers or artists or creators, it's kind of like your identity gets very mixed in with whatever you create. But it's just so odd that like, okay, we have this professional relationship, maybe we're really close, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But also, sit down, we're going to have a chat about me.
[00:30:00]
ALICE: Yeah, I thought I was going to be okay with being really open about my identity and being able to speak about it. But I've turned down a few interviews and things just because I felt like they would be too personal. And I personally, like I think there are a lot of authors out there who are totally comfortable to kind of share their really, you know, personal experiences and their life story in order to publicize their book, which is totally fine. I don't think there's a problem with that. But for me, I feel quite uncomfortable doing that. And I have turned down a few things just because I can't like put my whole life out there. I would rather just let the book speak for itself, I guess.
SARAH: Yeah, very fair. I would probably be in the same boat.
KAYLA: Yeah, I think especially because there are so many misconceptions that like, it would be so easy for your words to kind of be twisted or then like if you talk about it once, then that's like all people want to talk to you about. I know Yasmin has kind of talked about with her interviews and stuff, there are some times that people write things and she's like, well, that's not what I said. And very personal questions. It's like, once you open that door, man, I mean, some weirdos are coming.
ALICE: Yeah
SARAH: Some uninformed weirdos will show up at your door. Is there anything that I guess you wanted young aspec people, people who might be questioning or just, you know, queer people in general or straight people? Who knows? Like to get out of reading this book? Is there something that you wanted to kind of convey to them?
ALICE: I think particularly to aspec teens and young people generally, it's okay to have a period of figuring things out and not feeling super confident about your identity. I feel like with kind of gay and bi coming out stories, it's understood that people will have a period where they're really unsure, they might be unhappy with their identity and they're finding it really difficult. But I felt like it wasn't really understood that aspec people could have that experience as well. Like when I was trying to figure out my identity, all I saw online were people who were super positive and happy about their identities. And that was great, obviously, but at the same time, it almost made me feel worse for not really liking this part of myself yet. So, in Loveless, I wanted to show someone who is going through that period of being really unsure and not really liking what she's experiencing and then growing to like herself more. So yeah.
SARAH: Yeah, I think that the period of questioning is a very nebulous kind of thing because a lot of times it's talked about in a sense it's like the before and the after. Like before I knew I was fill in the blank identity and after and now life is great. But it's like the questioning period in some ways, I think especially for aspec people, like never totally ends just because of the nature of aspec identities. It's like it's the lack of attraction. So, it's like, well, I mean, it could maybe it could happen. And so, like every time there's a person who I'm like, oh, like I really want to be friends with that person. Like, do I have a crush on them or is this just like I just wish do I want to be friends? And so, like it's kind of… it's kind of never ending for aspec people. And that's not often, I guess, addressed.
ALICE: No
KAYLA: Yeah. Yeah, I think I hope this isn't too spoilery either. But kind of I feel like there's never like that clear after for Georgia in the book either. There's never like at the end, like an ending part where she's like, and now I'm extremely happy and I have everything figured out. Like she's very much still like discovering her identity since it's like, you know, only been like a year or six months since she has really accepted it. I think that was really great to show too, because we like we'll talk to listeners sometimes and they'll be like, I'm really frustrated with like my questioning. I want it to be over. And you kind of have to lightly say, like, I know you're frustrated, but it's simply never going to end. And it was just kind of like a very positive representation of that.
SARAH: Yeah, like you'll get to a point where you're at peace with the fact that it's never going to end. It's not like you're going to get to the end of questioning. You reach peace with the infinite questioning. I guess, Kayla, before we get to our last two questions, are there anything that you want to add to also talk about before we hit those last two very important questions?
KAYLA: Yeah, the last two questions are really heavy hitters. I guess I've seen you post, I think today you posted, when we were recording this today, you posted a drawing of all the characters and it was so cute.
ALICE: Yes
KAYLA: Also, Jason is so much bigger than I thought he was. I know he got into sports…
ALICE: I know, he’s tall
KAYLA: I didn't expect him to be so muscly. I forgot that he got into sports. I was like, why…
SARAH: I got to look into Jason
KAYLA: He's so muscular. But anyway, you mentioned in it kind of like the reception. What has the reception from particularly the aspec community been like for this book in particular?
ALICE: Yeah, it's been really amazing actually. I've had lots of messages from people saying that they're really pleased to find some representation, like we were saying, of the questioning period, I guess, and a coming out story about being aro-ace. Yeah, I've had lots of messages and it's been really wonderful.
SARAH: It's exciting. I know that this is sometimes the most annoying question in terms of like the what's next for you, but like do you plan…
KAYLA: Sarah, don't do that to her. Don’t do that to our new friend
SARAH: No. It's a specific question. It's a specific question. I guess my question is, is aspec representation something that you're going to try to integrate into everything you do in the future? Or is it sort of like if it works, it works, I don't want to be known as the aspec writer? I guess what's your take on that?
ALICE: I definitely want to. I'm not really working on anything new at the moment, apart from my graphic novel series, Heartstopper.
SARAH: Great plug, good job.
ALICE: Which is kind of ongoing. But yeah, I'm not working on any new books at the moment. But I do want to introduce an aro-ace character into Heartstopper. If you don't know about Heartstopper, it's an LGBTQ plus romance graphic novel series with lots of LGBTQ plus characters. So, yeah, I think I will in the future include lots more aspec characters. Yes
KAYLA: What I will say, especially, I haven't read yet your other books. I'm going to get them. But I was reading about them and a lot of the other characters from those books are queer as well. So, if you have other identities that you're looking for representation, your books are just full of queer children. There are just so many gays.
SARAH: Queer children everywhere.
KAYLA: They're running rampant.
SARAH: They're dressed like Scooby Doo.
ALICE: Yeah, they really are.
SARAH: And that's not even a spoiler. That's just a fun little tidbit.
KAYLA: It's just true.
SARAH: Alright, our last two questions. I mentioned to you how much I cried reading this book. What do you have to say for yourself for the fact that you made me cry so much?
ALICE: I'm not sorry.
SARAH: Fair.
KAYLA: That's fair. You should be proud, if anything, I feel like.
ALICE: Yeah, I didn't think it was going to be a crying book, honestly.
KAYLA: Oh, but it was.
SARAH: Okay. But here we are.
ALICE: Yeah
KAYLA: I'm trying to remember at what part I started crying. It was definitely in the second half.
SARAH: Oh, I started… I cried basically throughout the entire book.
KAYLA: I'm trying to remember. I definitely… I was reading it in the living room with my mom, and I was on my side of the couch, and she was watching TV, watching the Titan games, which is an American Ninja Warrior thing. And it's with the Rock. Yeah, so my mom was watching The Rock, and I was in my corner crying, and I was like, don't look at me, don't look at me.
SARAH: No, I read the book in two sittings. And so, I read the first half and the first one and the second half and the second one, and I cried quite a lot in both sittings. I think it was just because I knew what she was experiencing, and I was like, I know what's happening, and I know that this is going to be hard, and I've been through this, and now I'm crying.
[00:40:00]
KAYLA: I did at one point have to put the book down, because I tend to get very stressed by books and movies when the stressful part starts.
SARAH: Secondhand stress
KAYLA: In the plot, there's always the part where the stress starts. So, she was about to… I don’t want to spoil this, start her experimentation journey. She was thinking about it, and I was like, no, oh no, I have to put the book down for the day, because I was like, don't fucking do it. And she did. She did do it.
SARAH: Oh, incredible. Kayla, do you want to ask the last question, because you wrote it?
KAYLA: I did. And I realized, I feel like we asked this to our last guest, and I think this is probably just our new guest question that we're going to probably ask all of our guests.
SARAH: Fair
KAYLA: Not that it's any less relevant to you, Alice, or that it's not true, but our last question is, will you be our new best friend?
ALICE: Yeah.
KAYLA: See, what a good friendship romance story this would be. We had Alice on our podcast, and then we fell in love.
SARAH: We fell in platonic love here on International Friendship Day. The day we’re recording
ALICE: Wow.
KAYLA: Wow. I mean, that's everything. That's a fanfic.
SARAH: The story is here. Incredible. All right. Kayla, what is our poll for this week?
KAYLA: I've actually had our poll prepared for like a week now.
SARAH: What a turn of events.
KAYLA: You're welcome. Is everyone going to answer the same thing? Yes. That's fine. So, Alice, or for any new listeners, we do like a poll on our Twitter after each episode.
ALICE: Okay
KAYLA: Just something relevant. So, I want my poll to be which Loveless character are you? And is all of our listeners going to say Georgia? Yes. But I still want to do it. So, there's obviously more than four characters, but Twitter only allows four. So, I'm just going to go with the main, what I see as the main four.
SARAH: That's spicy because it's like…
KAYLA: Maybe Alice is going to yell at me and be like, oh, you didn't put six.
SARAH: There's kind of a main five and then maybe a main six. So, I'm curious to see who you got.
KAYLA: I know. Well, I know, and now I feel bad. Maybe there needs to be two polls? Anyway, so my main four would be Georgia, Rooney, Pip, and Jason. And I did have to cut Sunil, and I am sad about it. But there's only four.
ALICE: No, I think Sunil would understand.
SARAH: I think he would as well.
KAYLA: That's true, Sunil is very understanding.
ALICE: Yeah
KAYLA: So anyway, that's the poll. And if you haven't read it, I guess that's a problem, huh?
SARAH: Well, I guess the secondary poll would be... no, maybe this is the first poll and then your poll would be the secondary poll. So, the first poll would be, have you read Loveless yet? And the options are yes, no, but I'm going to, and then no because I'm a buzzkill.
KAYLA: I'm stupid.
SARAH: No, because I'm cancelled.
KAYLA: Yes, these are good. I should write these down before I forget.
SARAH: You're supposed to do that every week, Kayla.
KAYLA: Well, that's what I'm doing right now.
SARAH: Okay. All right. Great. Those are going to be our polls. Alice, at the end of each episode we also do our beef and juice, so the things that we have beef with and the things that we're feeling good about. I will go first. I didn't prepare anything. My beef is America is just slide right on into fascism. I'm not pleased with that.
KAYLA: Wow, that's a big one, dude. I don't have anything prepared, but let's talk about fascism.
SARAH: It's a beef.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: And my juice is this book. Even though I cried a lot, it was a good crying.
KAYLA: Yeah. That's very good.
SARAH: Kayla, would you like to go next?
KAYLA: Yeah, my beef is... oh man, this is the problem with recording two episodes in one week is now I can't think of another beef.
SARAH: We recorded yesterday because Kayla's going on vacation.
KAYLA: Because I'm going on vacation. My beef is that... What is my beef? It's kind of hot in my room right now.
SARAH: I'm toasty.
KAYLA: It's kind of hot in here without the fan going. My house has bad circulation.
SARAH: It's going to be like 100 for the next couple days here in LA, which I don't know what that is in Celsius, but it's toasty. And my grandma texted me. She goes, I saw that it's going to be 100 in LA. That's hot as Blazers.
KAYLA: Grandma no
SARAH: And I was like, that's why I'm staying inside, grandma. And then she was like, when is the last time it rained? And I was like, I genuinely can't remember. And she was like, when is it going to rain the next time? And I was like, I don't know, probably in the fall.
KAYLA: How am I supposed to know that?
SARAH: And then she just sent that, not bitmojis, but on iPhones, how you can make your face and you can make it talk and stuff. She sent me one of those with just its hand on its face. And I was like, thank you for this content, grandma.
ALICE: No
KAYLA: Your grandma does love an emoji and a bitmoji.
SARAH: Oh, she sent so many emojis too. There were so many.
KAYLA: My juice is that I've started a new fitness journey. And if you listen, you know that do I start a new fitness journey every three months and then give up? Yes. But my new fitness journey is jump roping. And I was doing a lot of jump roping the other night and I had to really pep myself up. So, I was just like looking at myself and being like, if Mitch from Pentatonix can go from Butch Mitch to current Mitch, then I can have a hot girl summer.
SARAH: Kayla texted that to me with no context.
KAYLA: I did give you context. I said I was working out afterwards. Anyway, I guess that's my juice.
SARAH: Alice, what is your beef in your juice?
ALICE: Well, you've stolen my beef. My beef was going to be that we are also having a heat wave here in the UK this weekend.
SARAH: We can share some beef.
ALICE: Yeah, I am just very unhappy with this. I hate the heat so much. My juice actually is, I have just started watching season three of Good Girls. Have either of you watched that?
SARAH: I have not seen it.
KAYLA: I have watched some. I've seen some of season one, I think.
ALICE: It's one of those shows that just gets increasingly more tense with every single episode. So, I'm just sitting there watching it like, how does it keep getting worse for everyone involved? But it's great.
SARAH: So, Kayla would just be like sweating.
ALICE: Yeah, you probably wouldn't like it.
KAYLA: The few episodes I watched, I was just like, why do they keep making the worst decisions possible? Why don't you just take a week off? Just stop it.
SARAH: Make like Alexander Hamilton and take a break. Except he didn't take a break and that was the problem.
KAYLA: He didn't. He fucked it up. And he fucked.
SARAH: Anyway. Oh, wonderful. You can answer our poll. Tell us how much you love Loveless. Tell us about your beef and your juice on our social media @SoundsFakePod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/SoundsFakePod. Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Astritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Drew Finney, Perry Fierro, Dee, Purple Chickadee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, BookMarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Simon, Jamie jack, Jessica Shea, Rio Faustino, Daniel Walker, Barefoot Backpacker, Livy, Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, Aliceisinspace, Sky Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W, Savannah Cozart and Harry Hastendugan. Harry is a new patron. Thanks, Harry. I looked at your name and I was like, you have a really British name.
KAYLA: I messaged… I hope Harry doesn't get mad about this, but I messaged Harry saying thank you. This kind of long-ish message just saying how I appreciated them and they just said ye.
SARAH: That's a great response.
KAYLA: Me too. That's how I would also respond. So, thanks, Harry. I love you very much.
SARAH: Our $10 patrons are Kevin and Tessa @dirtyuncleKevin @Tessa_m_k, Arcness who'd like to promote the Trevor project, Benjamin Ybarra who'd like to promote Tabletop games, anonymous who’d like to promote Halloween, Sarah McCoy who'd like to promote podcasts from a planet weird, my aunt Jennie who'd like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra would like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug rice who would like to promote Native by Caitlin Curtis and Maggie Capellbo would like promote her dog's Instagram @MinnieMuffin19, and H Valdez. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White, Nathanieljwhitedesigns.com, my mom Julie who’d like to promote free mom hugs, Sarah Jones who is @eternallolli everywhere, Dea Chappelle who would like to promote the Underrealm series by Garrett Robinson, Andy A. who would to promote Being in Unions and the IWW, and Martin Chazelle who would like to promote mental health. He didn't specify whether it was good mental health or bad mental health, but I'm going to go with good.
KAYLA: Also a few other things about my main man Martin…
SARAH: And Dragonfly
KAYLA: Oh yes.
SARAH: Dragonfly would like to promote Loveless by Alice Oseman
[00:50:00]
KAYLA: Yes, obviously. But I do want to take a moment for my good man Martin, my new favorite person. One, Martin in his name on Patreon said, Martin Chazelle, dot dot dot, like gazelle. Just so we knew exactly how to say it. My good dude Martin, which I guess if you've, if you watched our livestream on Friday, which for us is tomorrow but for you is two days ago, Martin did a remix of our theme song, which is wild. Why would anyone do that? Martin, I love you.
SARAH: Incredible. Alice, where can the good good people of… what? I don't know. Where can our good good listeners find you?
ALICE: You can find out more about my books on my website, aliceosman.com or I'm just @AliceOseman on Twitter and Instagram.
SARAH: Lovely.
KAYLA: Nice
SARAH: Is there anything else you'd like to promote in this time?
ALICE: Yeah, no, yeah, I did want to say actually Loveless is not the only story about aro-ace characters out there. I also want to recommend Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dorn-Bohman, which has got an aro-ace protagonist, really amazing book. And also, Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kahn, which is about an I believe biromantic asexual character. I've read it quite a long time ago, but they're both amazing. I would recommend.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Yes, a nice reading list.
ALICE: Yeah
SARAH: Nice. Stellar. All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much, Alice, for joining us.
KAYLA: Yes, thank you.
ALICE: You’re welcome
SARAH: Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
SARAH: And read Loveless by Alice Oseman.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]