Ep 167: Things that Aspecs Don't Owe You
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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)
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: things that we do not owe you.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: M’allard duck.
SARAH: Oh! Okay.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Cool. Okay. Kayla.
KAYLA: Um, yeah?
SARAH: What’s the good word?
KAYLA: The good word is that we lied to you last week. We didn’t know it but we did. And there’s actually something exciting happening this Monday.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Last Monday, as you probably noticed, nothing happened.
SARAH: Nothing happened. Yeah it’s going to be this Monday and if it’s not this Monday it’ll be both funny and sad.
KAYLA: Yeah that would—
SARAH: But it’s meant to be this Monday.
KAYLA: Listen. It’s not our fault. Don’t know what to tell you.
SARAH: It’s beyond our control. We are just the messengers. Yes, there is something happening Monday. Great news for the class or horrible news, I don’t know what your stance on this is. We have PO boxes now.
KAYLA: Ooooh, ahhh.
SARAH: I have a PO Box in California, Kayla has a PO box in Louisiana. You can send us mail if for some reason you want to. I will preface it by saying we got the smallest PO boxes you can get. I don’t know why you would send us large things like a whole cow or something.
KAYLA: Actually please I would like that please.
SARAH: Only send your whole cows to Louisiana. Not to California, please.
KAYLA: The point is, don’t feel pressure to send us anything. Just like a nice postcard cause then the stamp will support the post office. You can send us whatever you want, just don’t feel pressured to, you know?
SARAH: Yeah and if suddenly all of our listeners bought me a whole cow, I wouldn’t know what to do with the cow, and then I would feel guilty because out of so many cows, like I don’t eat beef, actually.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: Then I’d be like, what do I do with these cows? But if you would like to send us a lil letter, a lil sumn sumn, you can do that now.
KAYLA: Yeah, we don’t have the exact addresses as we speak, cause we both need to go to the post office, but I’ll put them in the episode description, I’ll probably put them on our website somewhere. I will make that accessible to you.
SARAH: Yep, you’ll know where you’ll find us.
KAYLA: Mm hmm.
SARAH: Cool.
KAYLA: And they aren’t our real addresses so.
SARAH: If you show up, we won’t be inside the mailbox, you know.
KAYLA: Imagine though if we lived inside a tiny PO Box.
SARAH: Oh excellent. Okay great that’s our housekeeping. Okay Kayla what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we are going to be listing out just a few things that aromantic people, asexual people, people on those spectrums we do not owe you or anyone.
SARAH: Yeah, I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.
KAYLA: I just feel like, I think people of the world feel like other people owe them things. Like they deserve things, and I don’t know that anyone—this is getting very philosophical. I don’t know even—I would have to think deeply if this is true but I don’t think no one just pops out of the womb deserving anything, other than like, well that can’t be true.
SARAH: They deserve to be fed, and housed and treated with respect.
KAYLA: But also like, the thing of, everyone deserves kindness. I don’t think that’s true. Like do I think Hitler deserves kindness? No. You know what I mean?
SARAH: I think this brings us back to one of our very few arguments about whether or not an eight-year-old can be evil.
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KAYLA: But you know what I mean? I think every human deserves basic human rights but like, you know, not everyone deserves everything.
SARAH: Kayla thinks that eight-year-olds can be evil.
KAYLA: Do I think an eight-year-old can be inherently evil? I don’t know. I don’t know, honestly.
SARAH: We’re not going to get into this.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Tl;dr, we’re explaining what aspecs don’t owe you. That’s all.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Kayla, would you like to start us out?
KAYLA: Aromantic and asexual people don’t owe you their lunch money.
SARAH: No, they really don’t.
KAYLA: Just because you may not like us, doesn’t mean you may take our lunch money. I need that for my Bosco sticks.
SARAH: Yeah I have a very similar thing. I just said money as a whole. I went on to say that aspecs literally can’t owe money. It’s hardwired into us, we literally cannot owe money.
KAYLA: I don’t understand.
SARAH: If we were to apply for a loan at the bank, the bank would have to just give us the money.
KAYLA: Why?
SARAH: We can’t owe them anything.
KAYLA: Why?
SARAH: Because I said so.
KAYLA: Okay, alright.
SARAH: Then I went down this whole rabbit hole of well, what about corporations? I was like, how does the government prove that you’re aspec and you can’t owe money and then I was like, legally they can’t ask you. So you can just say that you are. So then I was like, what if a corporation just said they were asexual, and then I was like, a corporation can’t be asexual. A corporation can’t be like, “I don’t experience attraction to men or women or any gender” but then a corporation doesn’t experience attraction to men or women or any gender, so does that mean that Amazon is asexual?
KAYLA: It means they’re non-sexual, we’ve talked about this. It’s like how a one-year-old is non-sexual.
SARAH: I know this is just the rabbit hole that my brain went down when I decided that aspecs literally can’t owe money.
KAYLA: Your brain sounds exhausting.
SARAH: It is.
KAYLA: Aspecs don’t owe you answers to your questions. You probably have maybe a lot of questions if you’ve never heard of asexuality and sometimes we can be nice and answer your questions about what asexuality is, what aromanticism is but we don’t actually have to answer your questions if we don’t want to.
SARAH: Yeah, we don’t. On that vein, I have, we don’t owe you any details about our sex life, our romantic life, our lack thereof, no details there are owed to you because it is none of your business.
KAYLA: I guess my next one would be aspecs don’t owe you proof. You can’t just—this isn’t really similar but now I’m thinking about. You know how there’s stories of trans athletes being in the Olympics and them having to go to the locker room and pull down their pants so other athletes can check. First of all, that’s incredibly fucked up. Second of all, it’s sort of like that where I don’t need to prove to you anything. I don’t need to give you some receipt of I’ve never had sex or I’ve never been in a relationship when also you can do both of those things and be aspec also.
SARAH: There’s no receipt that says I don’t experience sexual attraction. There’s none.
KAYLA: We do not owe you some sort of proof that it doesn’t exist because it just does and I would say you wouldn’t ask that to a gay person but you might be an asshole but you might also ask a gay person for their gay receipt so I don’t know.
SARAH: Yeah I would say this goes hand in hand with all the things you’ve said so far, is we don’t owe you our time. Even if we are willing to answer your questions or have a discussion with you, we don’t owe you infinite time to sit down and talk to you and hold your hand through all of it. That’s on you, you know and if you’re lucky enough to find someone who is patient and will answer your question, that is excellent, but it is not owed to you.
KAYLA: I agree. Similar to all of this, we don’t owe you a conversation or debate. I feel like people who are Internet assholes will get mad if they’re being aphobic and just get blocked and they’re like, “oh I was just trying to have a conversation, friendly debate.” Um if you are being aggressive towards my identity I don’t owe you having some spirited intellectual debate or whatever you think you are having. Like I don’t need to argue with you about if I’m real or not.
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SARAH: Even if you’re not being aggressive you’re not owed a debate. It is up to the parties involved to be the reply guy. But it is also that person’s right to ignore you or mute you or block you whatever.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: Indeed. I think this is the last one that’s similar to what you have already said but just an explanation. We don’t owe you an explanation for our behavior or how it connects to our identity. I’m not going to explain jack shit to you. Or at least, I can, but I don’t have to. You shouldn’t expect me to.
KAYLA: I feel like we’ve said this a lot. We can’t put the burden on the person who is of that identity to do all that explaining. We can’t put the burden of fixing racism on black people so we can’t put the burden of fixing aphobia solely on asexual and aromantic people. There needs to be some support and sometimes if we get tired we don’t need—sometimes there’s a lot of amazing aspec people who take a lot of time to have conversations with other people but no one has to do that.
SARAH: Yeah, let us rest.
KAYLA: Yeah, I feel like we’ve said this before but if you’re an aspec person and if you feel like you don’t have the energy or don’t feel safe or comfortable doing those explanations, don’t feel bad. You’re not missing some opportunity to educate someone. If they want to that bad, they can do it on their own or find someone else or whatever.
SARAH: The onus is not on you to educate uneducated people.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Tea. I think it’s your turn, Kayla.
KAYLA: I know, I’m thinking. Can you believe I didn’t write anything down?
SARAH: I wrote things down. Not a ton, but some.
KAYLA: We don’t owe you—we don’t owe you, what’s the word? We don’t owe you a stereotype. We don’t need to fit the mold of what you think an aromantic or asexual person looks like, you know? We could be—the stereotype is someone that’s very childish or immature and I’m sure there are a lot of aspec people that are just that way because some people are just very young at heart and that’s okay.
SARAH: And some aspec people are literally children. They’re minors so like, yeah, of course.
KAYLA: And there are some aspec people that are literally sex workers and that’s also completely good and find. We do not owe any of that to you, sir.
SARAH: Just because we don’t fulfill a certain stereotype doesn’t mean we are any less aspec. On the flip side of that, we don’t owe you sexiness. We don’t have to have some kind of sex appeal just for your consumption. I think a lot of times—we’ve talked about this before—aspec people are looked at like, oh if they’re attractive “what a waste.” No I don’t owe you jack shit. I could be the hottest person on the planet and I could wear a Booba suit around. I don’t owe you anything.
KAYLA: I don’t remember if this was given a title or anything but recently on twitter I saw some disgusting person that was fetishizing aspec people and was saying people who are asexual are the most sexy people and it was very—
SARAH: Because they’re so innocent and pure!
KAYLA: I don’t remember what it was… who was talking about this?
SARAH: It’s also probably an infantilization situation.
KAYLA: It was like, oh the chase of it all. Or if it was something fucked up like that. I think it was a couple days ago, I can’t find it. It was fucked up. We do not owe you—I had one and I then I forgot, I should have written it down. Forgiveness I guess? There are a lot of aspec people who don’t consider themselves part of the queer community because an unfortunate amount of people in the queer community have said ace and aro people aren’t welcome. That obviously doesn’t make us feel very welcome so some people have just outright said I’m not going to be part of this. Even if the queer community were to suddenly turn it around and say, “no you can come here, it’s fine,” ace and aro people who have been hurt that kind of stuff don’t owe you forgiveness of past things that have happened and turning around it being like, okay everything is fine, it is okay everything that has happened in the past you know.
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SARAH: Yeah even with individual things that have happened in your life, if someone does come around, and they’re like, “I’m sorry for how I treated you,” good but you’re not obligated to forgive them or to repair your relationship for things to be like they once were. If the person is upset by that then that means that they’re not actually sorry. They don’t actually want your forgiveness, they just want it to go back to normal or whatever. If they were genuinely sorry, they would respect the fact that you don’t owe them that. Aspec people don’t owe you a bite of their grilled cheese. We are in a pandemic okay, you cannot just be going around sharing grilled cheese with strangers.
KAYLA: That sounds kind of messy.
SARAH: Yeah. You gotta take your masks off and you gotta be near—no! Absolutely not!
KAYLA: No sir.
SARAH: I do not owe you a bite of my grilled cheese.
KAYLA: We also don’t owe you a cake. This is our cake, and none for you, thanks.
SARAH: Maybe I would consider selling you a piece of cake for the right price.
KAYLA: Not just give it to you.
SARAH: Yeah, come on, it’s owed to you. We also don’t owe it to you to wear makeup.
KAYLA: Mm.
SARAH: No one owes it to anyone to wear makeup. Unless it’s like you’re being paid to be a model for a makeup brand.
KAYLA: In which case you kind of have to. You probably contractually have to.
SARAH: In most situations though, we don’t owe it to you to wear makeup. And you know what. If men or masc people or whoever does want to wear makeup, cool. They don’t owe it to you to not wear makeup.
KAYLA: Bitch.
SARAH: Bitch.
KAYLA: Aspec people don’t owe it to you to be young. I think we all know that—I guess this kind of goes along with stereotypes, which I said earlier—but there’s the idea that everyone who’s ace or aro is an Internet kid and it only exists online so blah blah blah. But we don’t, you know. There are ace people of all different shapes and sizes and ages and backgrounds, and we don’t owe it to you again to look like what you think we look like.
SARAH: Yeah. I mean if we did, would that mean, ace people would have to die as soon as they turned 20, or would that mean they would just have to turn straight?
KAYLA: That would both be upsetting.
SARAH: Both upsetting. Both very upsetting. Aspec people don’t owe it to you to—Kayla kind of already hit on this, but to dress in a certain way. Again this is kind of going with the stereotypes of what aspec people look like—
KAYLA: We don’t have to be ugly, we don’t have to be super hot and a waste, we don’t also have to be ugly.
SARAH: You don’t have to be ugly, you don’t have to be hot, you can look like a wonderful, wonderful gremlin.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
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SARAH: You don’t owe it to anybody to look a certain way, to dress a certain way, if you don’t ever want to wear revealing clothes, then don’t. If you want to wear a mini skirt with your ass hanging out, good job. Nice ass.
KAYLA: Good job, nice ass. If you want to wear very baggy clothes and sweatpants everyday like I do, good. You still have a nice ass unless you don’t want to have a nice ass. And then you don’t and I won’t look at it respectfully.
SARAH: Unless you physically don’t have an ass, in which case, you don’t have an ass.
KAYLA: If you’d like to have a good ass, you have a good ass. If you wouldn’t like to have a good ass, you don’t. And if you don’t want to have your ass perceived, I am not perceiving.
SARAH: And whatever your understanding of good ass, is what we mean right now.
KAYLA: I will respectfully perceive it if you like and I will respectfully not perceive it if also you would like.
SARAH: Per your request, I am respectfully perceiving your ass.
KAYLA: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
SARAH: That’s all.
KAYLA: I had one and then I forgot because we started talking about ass.
SARAH: I’m sorry.
KAYLA: If we are in a relationship with you, whether we are arospec or aspec, we do not owe you sex just because we are in some kind of relationship with you. I don’t care if you really wanted the sex and it is very important to you in a relationship, no one - actually back it up - of any sexuality or gender, owes you sex ever and that especially applies to aspec people where sexual attraction is maybe not there, sir, ma’am.
SARAH: Non-binary way to refer to someone not sir or ma’am.
KAYLA: Mx.
SARAH: That’s like Ms or Mrs or Mr.
KAYLA: Sir, ma’am—
SARAH: My liege.
KAYLA: Smurf.
SARAH: Smurf, okay.
KAYLA: I don’t know.
SARAH: Aspec people also don’t owe you smoochums.
KAYLA: Mm hmm.
SARAH: Kayla I don’t know if you’ve noticed but for the past couple weeks, I’ve been exclusively referring to kisses as smoochums.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I think it’s pretty good. And mostly I wanted to use that because I wanted to use the word smoochums.
KAYLA: Is there a reason? What brought us to this point in your life?
SARAH: I don’t know. I think it partially came up because I was beta reading a fanfic for my friend and I just felt uncomfortable referring to it as a kiss in that moment in time so I called it a smoochum.
KAYLA: Okay. Sure.
SARAH: Yeah, I was like, when does this smoochum start? I can’t tell.
KAYLA: I mean I don’t have an answer.
SARAH: She had an answer and that’s all that matters.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Smoochums.
KAYLA: We do not owe it to you to be sex-repulsed. That is I think the basic assumption when you learn about asexuality. That’s—when I learned about it what I assumed—just refer to the first episodes and you can hear me being very inaccurate. We don’t owe you that. Like I said, we can be sex workers, we can love to fuck, we can do whatever, we do not owe it to you to be like, “ew gross” because maybe we like it very much actually.
SARAH: Maybe we like how… damp it is.
KAYLA: Ewwww. Ewwwwwwaaaaaaaa.
SARAH: As you can tell, I don’t have interest in the dampness.
KAYLA: I don’t like you.
SARAH: We don’t owe you our Adderall. I have a prescription for Adderall and I need it to operate something like an average person.
KAYLA: Have you ever had someone ask for it?
SARAH: I’ve had people ask me if I’d sell it to them. I’ve never had anyone ask if they could just have it.
KAYLA: I meant sell it. So people have asked you if they could buy it from you. Really? Seriously they’ve asked you that.
SARAH: And I said, “no.” And they said, “okay.”
KAYLA: Oh!
SARAH: It was fine.
KAYLA: It seems kind of disrespectful if someone tells you I’m using this for medicine, to then ask, “can I have it?” You know what I mean?
SARAH: Can. I. Have. It?
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KAYLA: Like you just told them that you literally need it to function. And then they’re like, but what if I had it?
SARAH: The thing with Adderall, I can function without it. Doesn’t mean I function well. It’s not like it’s a medication I need to walk.
KAYLA: Still seems a little bit insensitive.
SARAH: Still helps me function in a way that’s more similar to how the average person experiences the world.
KAYLA: Yeah. We do not owe you complete confidence in our orientation. If we are not quite sure that we are ace or aro or we feel like maybe we are fluidly changing into another sexuality as is want to happen—
SARAH: As is want to happen.
KAYLA: That’s very okay and fine and good. That’s actually very good. We don’t owe you being like, really okay with our identities.
SARAH: I would like to congratulate you on your fluidity.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: You’re welcome. We don’t owe you a $2,000 stimmy check. That’s the government.
KAYLA: I saw a really funny tweet that was like, this inauguration looks pretty nice for someone who owes me $2000.
SARAH: Yeah I saw that. You know who owes you a $2,000 stimmy check? The government.
KAYLA: Joe Biden.
SARAH: For these new stimmy checks, am I actually going to get it? I haven’t gotten any of the stimmy checks because in 2020, I was considered a dependent. The taxes that were filed in April of 2020, I was still considered a dependent on my parents’ thing. I no longer am but because I was then, I didn’t get any stimmy money.
KAYLA: I got stimmy #2. But not number one. But I’ve heard if you say on your taxes next year that you didn’t get them, you’ll get them after your taxes are done.
SARAH: Retroactively.
KAYLA: I don’t know how true that is.
SARAH: So in a year and a half, they’ll give me 600 dollars.
KAYLA: Yeah, yep.
SARAH: Good. Anyway, yes, please direct all stimmy related requests to not me.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: I mean I guess if there’s an aspec person who works in the Department of Treasury they might owe you. But it’s not them.
KAYLA: It’s not them, it’s congress that decides. The government pays it out, you know?
SARAH: Thanks to Alexander Hamilton for that Treasury.
KAYLA: We don’t owe you perfect health of physical or mental types. Just because we may not be perfectly healthy doesn’t mean that’s somehow causing our asexuality or aromanticism. We can in fact be both at once, thank you.
SARAH: Mm hmm. That’s accurate. I was hoping yours would take longer so I’d have more time to think of something.
KAYLA: Haha!
SARAH: We don’t owe you—my brain just stopped working. The only thing I can think of is we don’t owe you a plane ticket cause a plane just flew over my head.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: I mean, we don’t owe you a plane ticket.
KAYLA: I mean yeah.
SARAH: For the record, so. Jot that down please.
KAYLA: Yeah, why don’t you jot that down bitch?
SARAH: Real quick, real fast, make it legible. So you don’t forget.
KAYLA: Send us a picture, prove that you wrote it. I’ll be waiting, we’ll be waiting for that.
SARAH: We’ll be anxiously awaiting your post.
KAYLA: Was that your answer?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Great. Oh hmmmm.
SARAH: We don’t owe you titties.
KAYLA: No!
SARAH: I think that’s very similar to some of the things I said earlier but I would like to specify no titties are owed.
KAYLA: You know what we do not owe anyone? A receipt of our oppression.
SARAH: Ahh. Here, here!
(30:00)
KAYLA: Because first of all, aspec people do go through some shit. Lots of bad things do happen to many aspec people which is very sad. However, even if that were not true, I don’t need to show you my receipt of shitty things that have happened just to get an entrance to your little club.
SARAH: And if you’re an aspec person who hasn’t experienced those things personally, you don’t have to prove that it happened to you. If someone’s really insisting, “give me one way that aces have been oppressed,” you can tell them if you feel so inclined.
KAYLA: But you don’t have to.
SARAH: But you don’t have to and you don’t have to explain what did or didn’t happen to you.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: So.
KAYLA: So jot that one down.
SARAH: Jot that down too. Aspecs also don’t owe you—aspecs don’t owe you validation—in the sense that we don’t exist to validate your life choices. I feel like sometimes people look at aspecs and they’re like, oh look, I am so good, I don’t do the sex or, oh look do you approve of the amount of sex I have? And it’s like, that’s not my job.
KAYLA: It’s actually none of my business.
SARAH: I mean, if you’re having nonconsentual sex then I disapprove wholeheartedly. But we are not in a place to validate the way you feel and make you feel better just because, it’s like, oh this person who doesn’t experience sexual attention thinks that I’m doing it in an alright way. No that’s not what we are here for. We’re here to be human people.
KAYLA: First of all, I promise we’re not judging you for how much sex you have. We don’t give a fuck. And second of all, we don’t exist to tell you that we don’t give a fuck.
SARAH: Yeah, or on the other hand, we don’t exist to tell you you’re good for not having sex just because. I feel like a lot of times, there’s the misconception that aspecs think they’re high and mighty because they don’t experience a certain attraction and it’s like, that’s not what it is at all and if you’re looking to me for validation because you’re not acting on your attraction, well I don’t fucking care because I don’t think I’m high and mighty for not having this attraction. It’s just how I experience the world, eat my shorts.
KAYLA: Hmm. Eat her shorts, she said.
SARAH: I said it.
KAYLA: We don’t owe you the chance to change our mind.
SARAH: Hmm yeah.
KAYLA: No you cannot take me on a date to prove that I just haven’t been dating the right people, you cannot have sex with me to prove that I’ve been having sex with the wrong people. That is fucked up actually.
SARAH: Mm hmm. And you are probably fucked up if you think that’s an acceptable way to live your life.
KAYLA: You’re probably needing to go to therapy maybe.
SARAH: Everyone needs to go to therapy.
KAYLA: Yes, that’s true but more.
SARAH: Aspecs don’t owe it to you to be your therapist.
KAYLA: No one does, except for your therapist.
SARAH: Except for your therapist.
KAYLA: Because they literally owe you because of money reasons.
SARAH: I guess you usually pay them afterwards.
KAYLA: That’d be very funny if you went to therapy and then it’s the awkward time at the end of therapy when they’re like, “okay finish up your crying now give me your cheque.” That’s always a fun part of therapy, but what if you just ran away—you dine and dashed your therapist. And then you just kept going to a new therapist every week.
SARAH: They have all of your information though. They know your insurance and stuff.
KAYLA: What if I gave them fake information? And then I just did that to every therapist around town and I just became known as a serial therapist-ist.
SARAH: Wow. Wow.
KAYLA: What do you think about that huh?
SARAH: What I think is I’m going to go back to what I was saying which was, I forgot, what was I saying?
KAYLA: I have absolutely no idea. Oh we don’t owe you to be your therapists.
SARAH: I think in a similar way that sometimes people are like, I want you to validate me, the way they’re like, you don’t experience this so I want you to validate my experience it’s like, we don’t owe it to you to be your impartial judge on your relationships or whatever just because we don’t experience attraction. That’s not our job to be your therapist about your relationships, that’s what you get a therapist for. Thanks and have a nice day.
(35:00)
KAYLA: Goodbye actually.
SARAH: Goodbye.
KAYLA: Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
SARAH: Mmmmmmmmmm.
KAYLA: We-
SARAH: We don’t owe it to you to harmonize.
KAYLA: That was just a free gift you’re welcome. Didn’t owe you that.
SARAH: We don’t owe it to you to explain why we do or do not stan a person or group. I think this applies to everyone. Yall have heard me say I hate how it’s always assumed like, oh these teenage girls like so and so band just cause they’re cute guys and they’re attracted to them and bla bla bla. We don’t owe it to you to explain why you’re a fan of a person or band even if that person is seen as attractive and their fans do carry a certain stereotype. Like, fuck you. You know the reason that that came to mind?
KAYLA: Why?
SARAH: I received a text from my mom that she had watched a BTS video that I had sent her.
KAYLA: Oh my god, Julie is a BTS stan. She really is. It’s getting a bit out of control.
SARAH: She earlier today, unsolicited, sent me screenshots of their Boy With Luv music video identifying all of them by their name, she also identified Halsey by name because in past pictures I was like, oh so you’re not going to identify Jimmy Fallon by name you don’t know Jimmy Fallon’s name? She did identify Halsey.
KAYLA: Wow. Good for you, Julie.
SARAH: Great job, Julie.
KAYLA: Uuuuuuuuuuum.
SARAH: AAAaaaaaaaa, aaaaaah, pa paaaaaa.
KAYLA: We don’t owe you a ham sandwich.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: It’s mine. I don’t even like ham really actually that much.
SARAH: I ate ham today.
KAYLA: You like ham a lot. I’m not a big ham guy.
SARAH: Ham versus turkey, what are your thoughts?
KAYLA: Are we talking about lunch meat?
SARAH: Uh, both.
KAYLA: I like lunch meat better. If it’s the whole thing sitting on the table—
SARAH: Like a Thanksgiving turkey. Honey-baked ham.
KAYLA: The thing about turkey is it actually doesn’t taste good.
SARAH: It doesn't really taste like anything.
KAYLA: It’s very bland meat. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal for Thanksgiving.
SARAH: It became a tradition.
KAYLA: Yeah I know. I still have to go with turkey cause I’ve been eating a lot of ground turkey as an alternative to ground beef and it’s pretty good and you don’t do ground ham.
SARAH: You’re fucking deranged.
KAYLA: What!?
SARAH: I cannot believe you think turkey is better than ham. Ham is one of the great meats of our generation.
KAYLA: Oh kay. My dad just does this all the time, if there’s a whole ham out, he just grabs a ring of ham and eats it. Like I can’t be doing that.
SARAH: Yeah, tasty.
KAYLA: Actually you know where I really like ham is in a ham roll, you ever heard of a ham roll?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: You have a lil slice of ham meat, put some cream cheese, you put a green onion crunchy thing, you roll it up and it’s the best snack you’ll ever dang eat.
SARAH: If you could see the face I’m making when you said cream cheese.
KAYLA: I bet it’s pretty bad. I bet you don’t like it.
SARAH: I don’t. Do we have anything else we don’t owe people? I feel like we’re really getting off topic here.
KAYLA: Yeah, no, I’m running out of steam I gotta be honest.
SARAH: Me too. I’ll do one more. We don’t owe you more things we don’t owe you.
KAYLA: Ahhh hahaha.
SARAH: Come up with them yourself.
KAYLA: Do it yourself! Haha.
SARAH: D.I.Y. owing. IOU but IDOU. I don’t owe you.
KAYLA: Wee.
SARAH: Oh yeah, that’s what we’ve got for you this week, kids.
KAYLA: Yeah, good stuff, good ep.
SARAH: As a note to any new listeners we may or may not have gotten from the thing that may or may not be coming out on Monday, I would like to note that if you’re still here, I apologize. Last week’s episode was supposed to be the most recent episode—
(40:00)
KAYLA: And we were like, what a good ep for new people to come in on and then.
SARAH: But then it got moved.
KAYLA: So now you get this garbage.
SARAH: Now you get this. We considered doing something even more garbage.
KAYLA: And then I said we can’t be doing that. Not in a time such as this.
SARAH: Kayla what is our poll for the week?
KAYLA: I could not tell you.
SARAH: Okay, what do aspecs not owe you?
KAYLA: Hold on, gotta start typing?
SARAH: I think of course we should start with money, we don’t owe you money. I think we don’t owe you details about our sex life. Sex life details would be a succinct way to put it on a Twitter poll. Those two were both mine. What two would you like to provide from your own stores of things you said?
KAYLA: Hold on I’m still tippity typing.
SARAH: Tippity tappity tappity tip top toop top.
KAYLA: I’m going to say, a ham sandwich. I can’t spell sandwich. We can’t owe you a ham sandwich, we also don’t owe you—
SARAH: Don’t owe you to fulfill stereotypes?
KAYLA: Answers to your questions.
SARAH: Oh okay good.
KAYLA: Done.
SARAH: Excellent. Kayla, what is your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My juice is, I’m rewatching Parks and Rec and we just got to the part in season 3 where some new characters are introduced. It’s the point in the show where a bunch of the side characters start getting a lot of airtime and story development and it’s when the show starts becoming the show, you know what I mean?
SARAH: Hits its stride.
KAYLA: So we got to that point last night, it was just very exciting.
SARAH: Have you seen Joe Biden yet?
KAYLA: No but I did see a funny tweet that was like, an actor from Parks and Rec—
SARAH: Joe Biden is the first actor from Parks and Rec to become the US president.
KAYLA: I guess my other juice would be the inauguration. It happened, nothing bad happened to my knowledge. I live within eyesight of the capitol here in Louisiana, like the capitol building, which is scary because apparently the other day there were men with guns there and I had no idea until I read the news two days later. So I was a little afraid there were going to be riots in my neighborhood but then there weren’t. So that was good and juice. My beef is that I still don’t own a fucking coffee table and so we’ve been using our second couch as the place to hold or junk as you would with a coffee table. And there’s nowhere to put anything and it’s just a real fucking bother.
SARAH: So your couch is a table.
KAYLA: Yeah, it actually is and it’s incredibly annoying.
SARAH: Good, excellent. Fantastic.
KAYLA: It’s actually not but okay.
SARAH: Yawn. *yawns.* My beef is capitalism.
KAYLA: Okayy, alright.
SARAH: I’ve been very busy at work recently, it’s just been, I don’t get paid enough for this shit. Capitalism. My other beef is just today, this is hot off the presses, we lost Dear Saint Patrick of the Golden Ratio Dogs, the only non golden retriever of the Golden Ratio Dogs. But listen, we saw it coming, he was a very good boy with a very good headspike and he loved potatoes. And what else can you want from a dog other than that?
(45:00)
KAYLA: That’s pretty much it.
SARAH: Saint P, good lil guy. My juice—I could give political juice but y’all know what it is. So, I’m just going to go in a different direction and I’m going to say my juice is learning Korean. Now I’m saying this in part—
KAYLA: Every fucking week.
SARHA: I’m saying this in part to spite Kayla because she gives me shit for it being my beef every week.
KAYLA: Because it literally is your beef every week.
SARAH: So, I’m making it my juice and I also say that because I realized the other day that me learning Korean is the first time I’ve ever embarked on a difficult learning challenge because I wanted to? For fun? Not for a grade or the approval of someone. And I think learning that way is good and I’ve never experienced it before. I’m still motivated to do it even though I’m not not getting a grade. Do I have a Duolingo streak that I need to maintain? Yes. Do I need to stay in the level that I’m in so I don’t get bumped down? Yes. But am I still doing it for myself? Yes.
KAYLA: Sure you are. That’s what the Duolingo bird wants you to think.
SARAH: That’s what the owl wants you to think. There’s a person who has been in first place on my little ranking whatever or my category and their name is Tim? With a question mark.
KAYLA: They’re not sure actually. They’re still figuring that out.
SARAH: My picture on Duolingo is Jeff Goldblum as Spock so.
KAYLA: Great.
SARAH: I think we’re both taking it the same level of serious as far as our Duolingo profile.
KAYLA: Seems like you’re a good pair.
SARAH: If anyone ever finds someone on Duolingo named Sarah whose picture is Jeff Goldblum as Spock, that’s me.
KAYLA: What if Tim? Is a listener.
SARAH: That would be incredible. Tim? You’ve gotten so many EXP this week, great job.
KAYLA: Tim? This one goes out to you.
SARAH: This goes out to Tim?
KAYLA: This episode is dedicated to Tim?
SARAH: Great. Okay. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your favorite thing that aspecs don’t owe anyone on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon. patreon.com/soundsfakepod. It’s because of our beloved delightful patrons we were able to get PO boxes. Do we have a next goal?
KAYLA: Not yet.
SARAH: We’re trying to get more transcription done, we’re working on it. We’re workin’ schmerkin. I would like to apologize this time to Padya our transcriber for the fact that they now have to transcribe me saying schmerkin and I’d like you to know that it’s spelled schmerkin, thank you, Padya. Just a note for the class. We have a new $2 patron, it’s Nat, thank you Nat for joining the party. I don’t know you but I’m sure you’re a delight. I’m sure you’re great at parties cause you gave us $2, of course you are. Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Changeling MX, 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, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP—
KAYLA: SOUUUP.
SARAH: Question mark. What if SOUP is Tim?
KAYLA: That would be incredible. That would be the plot twist of the century.
SARAH: Plot twist of the century. Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Rory, Amberle Istar, Rachel, Kate Costello, John, Ariel Laxo, Ellie, Tessa, MattiousT, Chris Lauretano—it’s Lauretano but I always say Laurentano cause that’s what my mouth wants to do. I’m sorry, Chris. Sam, Kelly, Scott Ainsli, Orla Nieve Eisley, Julianne, and we have a new $5 patron, Khadir, thank you Khadir. I’m sure you’re a deight too. Just telling all the new patrons today they’re a delight.
KAYLA: Cause they are.
SARAH: Our $10 patrons are Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, anonymous who would like to promote Halloween, Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra who would like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug Rice who would like to promote "Native" by Kaitlin Curtice, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote—I forgot the word promote in the middle of reading the patrons, I forgot the word promote.
KAYLA: I literally thought you passed away.
SARAH: Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote their dogs Leia and Minnie and also H. Valdís, our next patron is H. Valdis, Purple Chickadee, who would like to promote figuring out one’s gender identity and the non-binary community, Barefoot Backpacker, I’m promoting for him, that picture of him wearing our shirt and that multi-colored shirt that he posted on Twitter, great. Ashlynn Boedecker, who is @shlynnbo everywhere, The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia, Ari K. who would like to promote The Eyeball Zone, Mattie who would like to promote The Union Series by T.H. Hernandez, Derek and Carissa who would like to promote the overthrow heteronormativity, Andrew Hillum—Hillum not Hillen, I can’t read, who would like to promote the ADHD, Neurodiversity and ace and aro communities on Twitter, and Aaron who would like to promote free forehead kisses. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote Being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to Everyone’s Special and No One is, which is his podcast, Miranda Denton who would like to promote Casa Q, Leila, thank you for this episode, and Leila would also like to promote taking a moment to breathe—but taking a longer moment this time. Just as a note for the class. Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote their Twitch, twitch.tv/MelodyDia and Dragonfly who would like to promote I thought of something 30 seconds ago and then I forgot it. Um. It could have been anything. Dragonfly would like to promote it being could have been anything. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.