Ep 154: How To Be Ace feat. Rebecca Burgess

Hey what's up hello! This week, we talk to Rebecca Burgess about their new graphic novel "How To Be Ace." We discuss comics, mental health, and struggling with your sexuality.

Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/how-to-be-ace-feat-rebecca-burgess  

How To Be Ace comes out on October 21st! Order here or wherever fine books are sold: https://bookshop.org/a/101336/9781787752153     

Follow: @theorah  

Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod    

Follow: @soundsfakepod    

Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt    

www.soundsfakepod.com

Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book

Transcript

(0:00)

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)

BEX: And an asexual artist, that’s Bex.

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: How to Be Ace.

ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.

SARAH: Welcome back to the pod. I have one.

KAYLA: Okay, go ahead.

SARAH: Jim’in. You’re welcome. 

KAYLA: Awful.

SARAH: Anyway, let’s brush past this as we always do when we have guests on the pod. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?

KAYLA: This week we’re talking about another amazing ace piece of literature? Graphic novel-ature? Media? We are talking about the graphic novel How to Be Ace, a graphic memoir about asexuality by Rebecca Burgess. Bur-jess? Bur-guess?

BEX: Burgess. (Bur-jus)

KAYLA: Rebecca Burgess. Or Bex. And we have Bex on today to talk to us about it. 

SARAH: Hellooo.

BEX: Hello. Thank you for having me.

SARAH: Thank you for coming. We love having people who have written and made things about ace-ness because there’s so little of it. 

BEX: I know, there’s nothing. There’s barely any — well there’s more now, but y’know, three years ago, there was nothing. 

SARAH: Yeah, exactly.

KAYLA: So for anyone who’s listening who might not know about you or the graphic novel, do you want to do a short introduction of yourself?

BEX: I’m a comic artist and I’ve done a graphic memoir which is like an autobiographical story about my experiences of being asexual. My personal experiences. The comic is mostly about that. I think that’s a good simple explanation.

SARAH: Straightforward. I read it and that is what I also got out of it.

KAYLA: Yes.

SARAH: Incredible. So just to start out, why did you decide to make this graphic memoir? What inspired you to start with it?

BEX: At the time, it was just because there wasn’t anything around about asexuality so it was just something I wanted to do to explain to people what it’s like cause when I was first making it, most people were quite dismissive. It’s a little bit different now, stuff is changing a little bit but at the time people were very confused or dismissive or just really didn’t get it. So I thought, I’ll make a comic about it and then people will understand what it’s like.

SARAH: Is there a reason that you specifically decided to go the memoir route rather than go for something that’s more fiction? Is there something specific about your experience that you wanted to share?

BEX: Yeah, nothing specific but I wanted something that was more personal because I thought more people would be able to relate to it which is why in the book I kind of go off on tangents on other stuff as well because I think a lot of people assume that if you are ace then you’re kind of maybe being over-the-top or a really weird person so I thought maybe if I make it real-life and include all this other stuff that’s relatable to anyone then maybe people will understand that just anyone can be ace and it’s a down-to-earth thing and not something really weird.

SARAH: Yeah and ace people don’t think 100% of the time about how they’re ace. That’s not the only part of their identity so it’s good to branch out.

KAYLA: I think the medium of a graphic novel makes it very digestible, unlike maybe a full-on book, it’s not as dense. It’s easier to read and understand.

(5:00)

SARAH: This just in: Kayla’s bashing books.

KAYLA: I hate books you guys. Contrary to what I’ve said in many other episodes, fuck books. No. Having it be so visual as well — not that you can’t fully get what you’re talking about through words that are written, I think there’s often misconceptions about what asexual people look like as well, so to be able to see your drawing of yourself and your drawing of your partner who’s ace, looking like very different people, I think that makes it — it adds another layer to the story you’re telling too. 

SARAH: Oh my god this is a human person — wild!

KAYLA: Imagine! Imagine. 

BEX: They think we’re reptiles or something.

KAYLA: I might be a reptile but that’s completely aside from me also being aspec, like I am a lizard person but that’s not because I’m demisexual. That’s not it.

SARAH: Totally separate. 

KAYLA: So you mentioned that when you first started writing this and creating this, that people were kind of dismissive which — you know there are always some people that are dismissive — did you have trouble having people take your work seriously at all or have trouble finding someone who wanted to publish it or anything like that because the topic isn’t as well-known?

BEX: This is a weird one — 

KAYLA: I mean not to make you shit talk your publisher I guess. 

BEX: My publisher was great about it. When I originally did it, I originally did it for a competition and I did feel a bit bitter that I didn’t get shortlisted but I can’t say it was because it was about asexuality.

SARAH: I think it was completely aphobic. 

KAYLA: I think you could claim that.

BEX: I’ll say that to myself. The publisher I’m with, they contacted me because they’d seen — I’d put it up as a webcomic after it didn’t win the competition and then the publisher contacted me to be like, “oh we want more stuff like this” because they have a whole range of stuff to do with other sexualities because they’re a publisher that specializes in minority groups and things like that, which is really good because they never had anything like that yet on their repertoire. So they contacted me rather than the other way around.

KAYLA: Good for them!

SARAH: That’s fantastic. Good that they’re seeking it out. I mean, sad that you’re the only aspec representation they’ve had but good that they were seeking it out.

KAYLA: Getting more into the actual graphic novel itself, you mentioned it’s obviously a memoir, it’s about your personal experiences, and I was just curious as I was reading it — is it 100% based on everything that happened to you or was there anything you tweaked that wasn’t exactly accurate to your life that worked better for just the medium? I was just curious. 

BEX: No it’s all pretty accurate. The only thing that’s not accurate is some stuff — I changed the chronological order slightly just to fit in with the storytelling aspect. I can’t quite remember what I chronologically changed but I definitely changed some stuff.

SARAH: Also listen, human brains are fallible, I don’t remember the order of when I did things. Does anyone know?

BEX: I don’t know what happened the right way, I’m just making that up. 

KAYLA: Did you ever feel especially nervous because you’re doing a memoir, thinking about, “I’m writing about very personal parts of my life and it’s going to get published and anyone can read this?”

BEX: Yeah. I still feel nervous about it now. 

SARAH: Way to trigger!

KAYLA: I just asked a question - sorry!

BEX: I think it’s fine though, cause you just have to do that. I’m prepared for it. I think the thing I’m most worried about is people after they’ve read it, coming back at me and saying, “why’re you making such a big deal out of this I don’t get it.” I’m kind of expecting that kind of response, the kind of response that you get sometimes if you tell someone you’re asexual — but about my book, being like, “I don’t understand why you’d write a whole book about this.”

(10:00)

SARAH: Yeah, and well the book is called How to Be Ace, when literally the rest of the universe is “how to be straight” so I mean. It’s implicit. You don’t need a book because it’s everywhere.

KAYLA: You can also just tell them what you told us. “Listen, someone asked me to publish this, so...” Mind your business.

SARAH: “I’m in high demand, what do you want me to do about it? Be less wonderful and talented? No sir.”

KAYLA: Sorry too busy.

BEX: I’m going to write that down and use that. 

SARAH: (laughing) Oh man. One of the things I liked about it is you very openly talk about how mental health and sexuality have interacted in your life and it really emphasizes how allonormativity and amatonormativity can actively harm us. Is that something that you just included because it was part of your own story or is that something that you wanted to emphasize specifically to hit on that topic?

BEX: I think a bit of both because I think at the time when it did affect my mental health it did have quite a big effect on it. From a personal point of view, I wanted to write about it. Then I wanted to highlight it from a bigger point of view so that people can understand how hard that is. I don’t really know anyone that hasn’t gone through that either from any kind of — not just ace people, but queer people in general. I don’t know many people that haven’t gone through some kind of trauma with all of that. It seems important. 

KAYLA: Yeah, I think it was very reassuring to read and know that when I’m reading is a real person’s story and they also went through it. I feel like something I hear from the ace community a lot especially people who are just learning about asexuality and questioning whether they’re aspec is they are like, “oh I have this mental health issue, I’m diagnosed with this disorder, whatever” and they ask, “does that make me not ace,” or “if I go on meds will I stop being ace?” All of that kind of stuff, so it was very reassuring to watch you through the memoir go through that and come out of on the other side like, “no I figured out my identity and I’m handling my mental health,” and I feel like it was a joyful ending for that. Not that the mental health struggle ever ends for anyone. 

BEX: Yeah, I think it’s good to have that reassurance for some people cause a lot of people must just force themselves — I’ve heard all sorts of things from people. I heard from someone that they’re therapist encouraged them to get drunk.

KAYLA: Oh, good.

BEX: To make them have sex with their partner. But I can’t think of anything, like, “what kind of therapist gives that advice? That’s awful.”

SARAH: “I suggest you get drunk and then have sex where the consent is questionable because you’re drunk and also because I, your therapist, encouraged you to do this?”

KAYLA: That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Oh dear. On the topic of shitty therapists, part of the novel shows you interacting with a therapist you had and not having the most delicious interaction with your therapist.

SARAH: Delicious therapist interaction.

KAYLA: Sometimes a therapist interaction can be delicious and I feel like we all know that.

SARAH: Are you okay? You just need a delicious therapist.

KAYLA: I very much do. Anyway, you have a not great therapist interaction, so since that interaction, have you had better luck with therapists and mental health professionals and do you have any advice as someone who’s gone through it if you do have a very shitty therapist like the ones we’re talking about, what to do?

BEX: My mum’s a therapist so I can’t say that therapists are bad. 

KAYLA: Well not all therapists are bad obviously.

BEX: For me, it’s really normal. For me going to the therapist is pretty — I know it’s quite scary for a lot of people, for me it’s a fairly go-to thing because I grew up in a household where it’s really normal to deal with that.

(15:00) 

SARAH: That’s good.

BEX: Yeah, it’s quite good. That therapist was not good though. I put too much trust in him, he was a bit rubbish.

KAYLA: He sounded kind of like a dick. 

BEX: But for anyone out there who has a therapist and they’re not making you — so the thing with therapy is, sometimes you’re not going to feel good even if the therapist is good because depending on the problems, you’re not really supposed to feel good at the beginning, it’s supposed to take a while.

SARAH: You have to work through stuff, it’s not like you’re going to feel great suddenly soon as you start seeing a therapist.

BEX: It’s actually quite hard to advise, yeah I think maybe give it a month’s worth of sessions, and if nothing’s sitting right with you, then find someone else. I know this because my mum’s a therapist as well. There’s a lot of different techniques and ways that people get into it so there are a lot of different types of therapy. When you go see one therapist that doesn’t mean that they’re going to give you the same advice. There’s a lot of different ways to go about it. And also if you have mental health problems, therapy might also not be the answer. Sometimes therapy isn’t the thing that works, sometimes it’ll be something else. But it takes a while to find the right path.

SARAH: Yeah I mean I would just say that if you are out there and you’re seeing a therapist who’s not validating your sexuality or is like, “it’ll change.”

KAYLA: I would probably cut that therapist off, maybe even before a month, maybe right away if they’re going to be a whole dick about your sexuality. 

BEX: Invalidating anything - just a therapist doesn’t validate your feelings is not a good therapist because that’s what they are supposed to do and even if they have their personal opinions, they’re not supposed to tell you their personal opinions about anything. 

KAYLA: It’s not their job. 

BEX: Yeah. (laughing)

SARAH: Yeah and I feel like a lot of times, people just aren’t informed about asexuality and they may not necessarily be trying to fuck you over, I’m sure they’re not the right therapist, but I think if you have someone who’s not informed on something and you want to tell them about it, and be like, “hey, here’s some stuff about it,” by all means sure, but it’s also not your responsibility to be like, “hey well actually let me tell you everything about this sexuality.” You know, they’re a therapist and it's their responsibility to be familiar with these things that they could be dealing with potential patients. 

KAYLA: All of my therapists I’ve brought it up to, usually through like, “oh I do this podcast and this is what it’s about and this is me” and they’ll be like “oh I’ve never heard of that,” and I’m like, “okay, I’m not going to sit here during my paid hour and tell you.” The one therapist I had during school was the most wonderful woman in the world. The next session she was like, “I looked it up,” and I was like, “yes Nicole! Yes you did! Yes!”
BEX: That’s brilliant.

KAYLA: I miss Nicole.

SARAH: As it should be. 

KAYLA: Correct! You did your job right.

SARAH: I also think it’s important to know even if you don’t feel comfortable using labels yet, if you’re just like, “I don’t feel comfortable with sex,” or “dating? What?” If someone’s being a dick about that or being like, “well you know, it will change,” that’s a big red flag for me.

BEX: Yeah, definitely. 

KAYLA: That’s very fair.

BEX: You guys gave way better advice than I did. 

SARAH: It’s a conversation. We’re all contributing!

BEX: Genuinely good advice. The person that I saw, it was over 10 years ago now, so it’s a slightly different time. People understand it better.

SARAH: Kayla do you have another one? You wrote most of the questions that are actually good.

(20:00)

KAYLA: I did. I’m trying to think — I don’t have a good segue for what I want to ask next. 

SARAH: I mean all I did was screenshot the part where it says, “realizing you’re not who you thought you were is really hard, realizing you you can’t go back on it,” I just screenshotted it, pasted it into the doc and was like, “I’m crying in the club.” That was my contribution.

BEX: Awww.

KAYLA: There were a lot of moments like that though, where I was like, crying in the club. But I also think — nice segue — just to go back to talking about the novel in general, it did a really good job of both telling your story and then having little insert pages that were just educational or more just hard facts about asexuality and what it meant and things like that, which I think — going back to what I said earlier about how digestible it is. I think it is a very easy way for someone to learn definitions and learn the basics with nice pictures and everything. So it’s also something you could give to a family member and be like, “here, use this to learn about me.” Fun for the whole family!

SARAH: I also appreciated how — obviously it’s a personal story about you — but those little inserts, I remember one where it was like, “okay, well some people are aroace, some people are this” — it kind of showed the many different ways to be aspec, which I think is a super important thing to emphasize. We need to do both. We need to emphasize that there are many ways to be ace, while also talking about our own personal experiences. If that isn’t emphasized in a lot of ace media, it can be misleading so I really appreciated that you were like, “hey, I’m not—”

KAYLA: “I’m only one person.”

BEX: Yeah I wanted to do that on purpose because I’m a bit stereotypical of what people think of, so I wanted to add the other stuff as well because it is all quite complicated. There’s all different types of people obviously.

SARAH: Yeah, I feel that way too because as a person who is aro and ace, and a person who — I’ve made this joke multiple times on the podcast — I’m not a very emotionally open person but that’s not because of my sexuality like it’s just because that’s the way I am. But I do feel like I fulfill a lot of stereotypes and I get kind of self-conscious about that and I’m like, “hey wait!”
KAYLA: There’s others!
SARAH: There’s other ways to be. 

KAYLA: Speaking of romantic orientation — segue — and this isn’t one of the questions I wrote down, so sorry if I’m catching everyone off guard, but so you obviously not — well, I guess I don’t know how you identify now — but what it came off in the book is that you are not aromantic asexual. And that you had romantic experiences with people of different genders and you dated and everything. Did that make it more difficult to come to terms with asexuality because you were like, “oh well I’m dating people so I can’t be asexual” or anything like that? Did it play a part in your journey through asexuality?

BEX: Yeah it did for me, just in the sense that — I think for a while I did think I was aromantic in the sense that I just really didn’t want to — although I had crushes on guys, I just didn’t want to do anything with them. But when I met my girlfriend, it was different. I don’t know, it’s just really like her.

SARAH: She’s just great!

BEX: I was just more wanting to do stuff with her than other people. I don’t really know what that means but I think before then, it was quite hard. I definitely didn’t want to be alone but then I got to a point in uni where I came to terms with being alone. I thought I might just be alone forever and I was okay with that anyway.

SARAH: I think that’s a big part of the aspec experience, whether you’re aro or not. Accepting that society’s expectations of you of how to live your best life — get married and have kids and a white picket fence — that’s not the only option and it’s okay to go a different route. But it’s also okay to go that route if you want to. Nothing matters.

(25:00)

BEX: It made me a better person, coming to terms with that. It made me more secure. I did go into a relationship after going through that. It just made me more secure if anything ever happened. I know who are in relationships where constantly a lot of their problems come from wondering whether they’re going to wind up alone. I don’t really worry about that because I dealt with all of that years ago. So I don’t really mind.

SARAH: Yeah, some people are serial monogamists in such a way that — 

KAYLA: Me.

SARAH: I wasn’t trying to call you out but okay.

KAYLA: Call me out it’s fine. 

SARAH: But you’re not a serial monogamist in the way that— okay. You try not to be a serial monogamist in the way that — no— what I’m saying —

KAYLA: Wowwww, this is a roast now. 

SARAH: You know the value of platonic relationships and you know that romantic relationships are not required to have a fulfilling life. You try to believe that, sometimes you fail.

BEX: Everyone goes through that sometimes, it’s pretty normal. Definitely, I hope I’m not coming across as, “people that are in relationships are really needy” cause I definitely don’t think that either cause it’s really normal to want to be in a relationship. It’s just part of most people’s lives.

SARAH: Even if you don’t want a romantic or sexual relationship, people like companionship. We’re a pack animal.

BEX: Everyone’s different and it’s all fine.

KAYLA: I think it ties in well — last week we talked about being confident in your sexuality and we talked about coming to terms with the fact that things might change — and I think that ties in really well with you sitting comfortably with the fact that, “okay something might happen with my relationship and if that happened, it would be fine,” and not spending your time worrying about, “oh my god what if something happens and I’m alone?” You seem like you’ve come to a point where you’re like, “okay I’ve been through that struggle, I know it’ll be fine if something changed.”

BEX: Yeah I’ve definitely got to that point. I’m glad I did it early. 

KAYLA: That’s fair.

SARAH: Would recommend doing it early if you can.

KAYLA: If you can’t though, you’re fine.

SARAH: It’s okay. 

BEX: Well, there’ll be people around to help you, whatever time you go through it. 

SARAH: There’s no correct timeline. Time is a flat circle. It’s a human construct.

KAYLA: Okay. Okay.

SARAH: Here in October of 2020, time means nothing.

KAYLA: Time is nothing.

BEX: Definitely. 

SARAH: You mention a little bit about sex education in the book and how your school’s sex ed sucked. What was your personal experience with sex ed in school?

BEX: Rubbish. It’s a very British thing isn’t it — rubbish, just rubbish. I don’t know what it’s like in America.

KAYLA: Bad, it’s also bad. 

SARAH: Also rubbish here.

BEX: In my school, they didn’t bother. It was like two classes and everyone was laughing too much so I think they just gave up. But it’s not good. They’ve been trying to do things in England — trying to teach kids about porn because compared to when I was a kid, kids watch porn now because it’s accessible. Or being like, “oh you can’t teach that they’re too young for that,” but they’re watching it anyway! So you should probably have a class about it so they can learn about this stuff.

SARAH: You might as well make sure they’re informed and understand — not like you’re going to be able to explain to a 12-year-old the full exploitative context of a lot of pornography and the state of women — you’re not going to necessarily get into that with a 12-year-old but giving context is good.

(30:00)

KAYLA: It’s very true though, it’s wild for me personally to think that teenagers are having sex cause when I was a teenager I didn’t even know that people in my school were drinking and having parties cause that’s — I was not cool — so I didn’t even realize. I remember this girl in eighth grade talking about blowjobs and I was like, “there’s no way she’s doing stuff like that.”

SARAH: Eighth grade?

KAYLA: YES. She could have been lying to be “cool” cause that’s what makes you cool. But anyway, apparently the kids are having sex. So you might as well teach them how to do it correctly and consensually and safely. The use of the argument that “oh if you teach them they’re going to start doing it” — they’re going to do it anyway.

BEX: Exactly. They’ll do it anyway.

KAYLA: They’re nasty. 

SARAH: And you could have taught me about it and I still wouldn’t have done it so it goes both ways.

KAYLA: Do you think if your sex ed in your school had been more comprehensive about sexualities and gender, do you think it would have made any difference in how long it took you to realize your sexuality?

BEX: Yeah, I figure probably it would have. If they talked about asexuality back then, it would at least have given me a name to look up on Google or something. I didn’t even know it was a thing until I was 20. They would have been helpful I think, just a little bit. Just the basics.

SARAH: In the graphic novel — memoir—I don’t know how to refer to this thing — in the thing that you created.

KAYLA: The very good thing that you created that we read.

SARAH: So you mentioned coming across the word on the Internet. Do you remember how that happened for you? It’s always an interesting question, I like to hear ace people’s reactions. 

BEX: I can’t remember, I genuinely can’t remember. I just remember reading about it, being like, oh wow when I read about it. I can’t remember how I found out. I might have been Googling “What’s wrong with me” or something like that. 

SARAH: And then being like, “what is this? This seems interesting.” 

KAYLA: Hellooo. Have you met — obviously your girlfriend, your partner is ace as well, right?

BEX: Yeah.

KAYLA: Which is dope cause I feel like ace people don’t often — I feel like a lot of the ace relationships I know of, they meet over the internet and then it’s very long-distance relationships.

BEX: Yeah I got lucky I think.

KAYLA: Yeah it’s cool that your partner is there. Have you met any other ace people out in the wild?

BEX: I have, yeah, quite a lot — maybe because I’m open about it. I’ve also met people who were asexual at one point and they have changed their mind over time.

KAYLA: Which is good and valid and you can do — this is another thing we talked about last week.

BEX: Yeah, exactly and that’s why I said they were asexual. It’s not like they weren’t asexual. That’s the thing. They were asexual at that point in time and then they changed. I’ve met quite a lot of ace people actually.

SARAH: That’s good!

BEX: I don’t know why but I’m just lucky. 

SARAH: You just attract them.

KAYLA: They flock — you give off ace energy and they just come in.

BEX: Yeah, it might just be the open thing, if you’re open about it, then people feel more comfortable saying it to you, as opposed to anyone else.

SARAH: Have you dealt with asexuality in any of the other works you’ve done, in any of the other webcomics or anything? Or is this the first time you really dove into it?

BEX: Yeah I haven’t really done it in such an open way. I did swear when I was 19 and first doing comics to do never do any romance comics. But that didn’t last — I did a romance comic just earlier this year, but it was an aspec romance comic so that’s fine.

KAYLA: Good, that’s acceptable. 

BEX: I’ll probably always have ace characters cause I don’t really know how to do anything else. I feel like I might get it wrong if I do something else. 

SARAH: I feel like all the ace creators I know, myself included, well of course I’m not gonna exclude aspec characters, why would I exclude myself from this?

KAYLA: Yeah it’s cause every time Sarah writes, her main character starts off as herself, and slowly through the writing process —

SARAH: And then I change it.

KAYLA — becomes someone else. Sarah and I wrote a musical together and it was about asexuality.

BEX: Really?

KAYLA: And the main character was Sarah. I mean that was the point, kind of, but the main character was Sarah. 

BEX: Did you do the music?

SARAH: Our friend Erin, who’s actually been on our podcast, did the music for it. 

BEX: Wow, that’s so cool!

KAYLA: We actually got an email from someone about it the other day. They were like, I watched it, who decided on the costumes. And I was like, “That was me, and our friend Parker.”

BEX: That sounds amazing, where can I find it?

KAYLA: Ugh the only — it’s a tragic story — the official recording of it got lost but there’s a very Facebook live recording. If you go to a Facebook page called Not Even Really Drama Students (NERDS), there is somewhere in the depths of that Facebook page, a very shitty Facebook Live recording. And that is, unfortunately, the only way to watch it.

BEX: I’m certainly going to watch it! Oh, that’s brilliant, I’m very excited.

SARAH: Ginger is being very loud. 

KAYLA: (to her dog) What if you go back outside? I guess this is a very broad question, that’s probably very impossible to answer cause I don’t know what I would say if someone asked me, so — 

SARAH: What a great way to preface a question. 

KAYLA: Sorry! But, was there a specific moment or something that happened in your life that made you finally be okay with asexuality or okay with how you are? Or was it — obviously it was a long process, we could see that through the graphic novel — but, I’m just wondering if there was anything specific that happened in your life, where you were like, okay, it’s time to accept that this is how it is.

BEX: I don’t know. I’d say it was a gentle process. I did a lot of thinking. I think I drew this in the comic ‚— can’t remember — I had an epiphany in the shower — 

SARAH: That is in the comic!

KAYLA: It is.

BEX: Yeah, I can’t remember whether I did that or not. But that’s what happened in real life cause I’m the kind of person that just obsessively thinks about stuff until I solve the problem.

SARAH: I feel like not a lot of people have that epiphany/eureka moment necessarily.

KAYLA: I think people think they’re supposed to have that and that other people have that but I think in reality no one does.

BEX: Yeah I think it’s gradual.

KAYLA: I forget what it’s called but there’s some term for when you think everyone else is doing something. If you interview undergrad students at college and ask them how often their classmates drink, it’s way higher than what they’re classmates are actually drinking and so they in turn feel the turn to drink more because other people — none of this made sense. But I just think, from what I’ve heard of ace people or people of any sexuality, they think they’re supposed to automatically be chill with everything and that everyone else is automatically chill with it but in reality, no one is chill. 

SARAH: Yeah and people will be like, “when did you figure out you were ace, or aroace” — I can give you a six-month span, maybe. A year span?

BEX: Sometimes years after stuff happened, it’ll make you question it. 

SARAH: Once you know when you look back, your view of yourself changes because you have a different understanding now and that can also color the way that you think about things.

BEX: Yeah stuff changes — the brain changes quite a lot as well. 

KAYLA: The dang brain.

BEX: Probably just go back and forth between thinking they’re one thing and thinking they’re another thing.

SARAH: Yeah. Kayla do you have any other things you want to ask about?

KAYLA: I can’t think of anything, is there anything we didn’t cover that you want to talk about Bex?

BEX: I don’t think so, you asked some really good questions.

KAYLA: Good. I’m glad.

BEX: I’m not really good at thinking of stuff to say so I’m glad you asked these great questions.

SARAH: Excellent. Bex, can you tell the kids at home where they can acquire this lovely, lovely graphic memoir?

KAYLA: And when? And how?

BEX: It’s coming out on October 21st and you can get it anywhere. So I will say if you don’t have the money, you can get it on Amazon if you want cheap postage. But Amazon don’t pay taxes and they treat their workers badly so if you can get it from a bookshop get it from there.

(40:00)

KAYLA: Classic Jeff Beezbos.

SARAH: I’ve been trying to buy less stuff from Amazon because I’m like, “this bitch.”

KAYLA: It’s so hard! It’s so hard not to. 

BEX: If you don’t have money, it makes sense to get stuff from Amazon.

KAYLA: You gotta do what you gotta do.

BEX: It’s cheaper, we totally get it. But if you can afford to get it somewhere else, get it somewhere else.

SARAH: It’s not your fault you live in a capitalist system.

BEX: Exactly!

KAYLA: October 21st. I will try to find some good links to put in the description of this episode where people can find information on where to get it.

BEX: Oh, thank you. 

SARAH: And what is your social media so they can find you on the interwebs?

BEX: My social media is @theorah most places. I’m having to spell this out — write it down as I say it. I can’t do spelling bee kind of stuff. 

SARAH: Spelling is hard.

BEX: If you type that in anywhere, I’ll come up.

KAYLA: I’ll type out the handles in our description as well so people can find it there.

SARAH: Just give it a little clicky-click. 

KAYLA: Just click on her.

SARAH: Kayla what’s our poll for this week?

KAYLA: Oh man. Such a good question.

SARAH: Is this graphic memoir the best thing you’ve ever read? Yes or yes?

KAYLA: We can’t keep doing polls like that every time we have someone on that creates something.

SARAH: I like doing polls like that.

BEX: Something really random like, “do you have the toilet roll forwards or backwards?”

KAYLA: Let’s make them both, let’s do both. 

SARAH: There needs to be a third option for “I don’t pay attention and it’s the way it is” for the toilet paper.

KAYLA: Okay. A third option for “I don’t care.”

SARAH: Excellent. Okay. Kayla, what’s your beef and your juice this week?

KAYLA: Oh, boy. My beef is that we finished The Great Pottery Throwdown. Me and my parents watched all 3 seasons in a week and a half. But now we have no good British TV to watch cause Great British Baking Show is coming out once a week. And it’s like what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

BEX: I know someone who was on the pottery — 

KAYLA: Do you really? Who?

BEX: The comic artist.

KAYLA: The girl from the 3rd season?

BEX: Yeah. Exactly. She’s a really good comic artist as well.

KAYLA: Oh my god stop! That’s so lovelyyyy.

SARAH: Kayla’s fangirling.

KAYLA: I’m fangirling, I just watched the show. Yeah I guess that's my beef other than the general moving stress but you know. My juice i…..n West Philadelphia, born and raised… my juice. My juice is Will Smith.

SARAH: I was going to make a joke about being on the playground the rest of your days being your juice. 

KAYLA: That would be a juice. I would love to be a playground for the rest of my days. My juice is Culver’s ice cream. The midwestern — I guess that’s not a beef, but when I move to the south, that they don’t have Culver’s, but it is — but Dean is very excited to go to the original Popeye’s so that’s another beef I guess. My other juice is that my cat has been extra cuddly lately. I guess cause it has been getting colder and she’s cold. But it’s fun. Those are my beefs and juices. 

SARAH: My juice is cupcakes. My beef is I need to call my insurance company and also Kayla if I don’t do that today, you reserve the right to bully me. 

KAYLA: Wait I just thought of another terrible beef, can I share.

(45:00)

SARAH: Wait go for it.

KAYLA: I went to the dentist, which I’ve decided I will never do again. I have this tooth that’s really been hurting me and I have to get a crown on it, which costs 800 American fucking dollars for a single tooth!

BEX: What?

SARAH: For a crown.

KAYLA: It’s a special filling that goes over the top of the — I don’t really know what it is. It’s an extra fancy —

BEX: We can get all of that for 25 pounds.

KAYLA: I need to move away from America. 

SARAH: Imagine having socialized health insurance.

KAYLA: For me to fix one tooth which has been bothering me for almost a year, but it’s been bothering me, but it’s going to cost me $800 and I am 3 days away from being unemployed. If anyone wants to Venmo me — I’m kidding don’t, but anyway. Bex is shook by the American healthcare system.

BEX: That’s insane. That’s something I make in a month sometimes, you know.

KAYLA: I know! 

SARAH: The reason I need to call my insurance company is because I got a referral to finally just go see a psychiatrist out here in California. And the way my insurance works is the psychiatry wing is in a different wing of the insurance so I have to call them to make sure that they got the referral.

KAYLA: My beef is the American healthcare system.

SARAH: I only know this cause I asked my sister what this fucking letter meant. My sister knows a lot about insurance and I was like, “I don’t know what this letter means, please tell me.” It took her several attempts to even understand it.

BEX: What happens if you have learning difficulties or mental health— 

SARAH: You’re fucked.

KAYLA: You do be fucked.

SARAH: Basically. 

KAYLA: I hate America.

SARAH: Yeah, that’s my beef and my juice. Bex, what’s your beef and your juice?

BEX: Do you want longer or short answer?

SARAH: Whatever you feel.

KAYLA: Obviously we have gone on for several minutes so, up to you. 

BEX: I’ll tell you my beef. This is very UK comic centric. In the last couple of days, we have a really rubbish comic convention that assigns a Comic Laureate every few years. 

KAYLA: What a title.

BEX: You get poet laureates and writer laureates and they represent the creative community and they’ve decided to go with a shop owner — so not an artist to go around schools and talk to kids about being comic artists, what about actually getting a comic artist to be a comic laureate?

KAYLA: So he doesn’t even make comics?

BEX: No he doesn’t make comics. He’s a white guy to go around and talk about “oh look at all the comics that minorities make.” Why didn’t we just — take out of the hundreds of minority comic artists doing amazing work? 

KAYLA: That’s straight fucked up.

SARAH: “This man profits off of the incredible work of minority comics, we’re going to give him an award!”

BEX: Exactly, it doesn’t make any sense.

KAYLA: What’s his name? I’d like to call him. What a dick.

BEX: We’re all really annoyed about it, but no one can really talk about it. I can talk about it on here but a lot of people can’t talk about it because they’ll afraid they’ll lose comic jobs, they’ll be removed from the convention.

SARAH: Kayla is going to leave a horrible Yelp review for this man.

KAYLA: I’m going to find his store — I have in the past, left fake Yelp reviews at a place that racially profiled a friend of mine. It was a misunderstanding — there was a lady that lived above the store and she was being really racist but they couldn’t tell if she worked at the store or lived in the apartments, and for a while we thought it was the store so we all left really bad reviews for this store. And then we were finally able to get in contact with them and it was the lady that lived above them so we — don’t worry — removed all of the Yelp reviews. We got it worked out. Anyway. If anyone needs me to leave a bad Yelp review, I will. For a small fee of $800.

SARAH: Do you have a — did you say a juice?

BEX: Oh yeah. I’ll say my cat. I’m stealing yours. My cat is really cute and fluffy and I love him.

KAYLA: I love a cat.

SARAH: Excellent. You can find our poll, tell us about your beef, your juice, tell us about your fluffy cat on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, which I will do later because it takes a long time. Guys it’s later! How exciting. Patreon.com/soundsfakepod is our patreon. We have a new $2 patreon, Sarah. Not me, but I assume that you’re much like me, very cool. And Kayla’s not here to dispute that so hehehe. Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Sajmon, Jamie Jack, Jessica Shea, Ria Faustino, Daniel Walker, Livvy, Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W — where is my voice going — Savannah Cozart, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP, Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Rory, Amberle Istar, Rachel, Kate Costello, John, and Ariel Laxo.  Our $10 patrons are Tessa, Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, anonymous who would like to promote spooky 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 her dogs Leia, Minnie, and Max, H. Valdís, Purple Chickadee who would like to promote ichliebevogel.wordpress.com — blog, not vlog, I can’t speak, Barefoot Backpacker who this week would like to promote getting a good night’s sleep. Dude, you’re so right Barefoot Backpacker. Ashlynn Boedecker, who is @shlynnbo everywhere, The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia, and Ari K. who would like to promote the YouTube Bad Empanada. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Dia Chappell who would like to promote the Underrealm series by Garret Robinson, Andy A who would like to promote Being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote mental health, and Dragonfly who would like to promote making BTS jokes at the beginning of the podcast that Kayla is forced to listen to now that I’ve taken over her m’thing. Before we go, Bex, I know we’ve already asked you for your social media. Is there anything you want to just promote? It can be a thing, it can be the concept of kindness, it doesn’t matter. 

BEX: Yeah, I’ll promote free healthcare for everyone. 

KAYLA: That’s such a good thing to promote.

SARAH: I love that promotion. 

BEX: We haven’t become communists — it’s really good. Everyone loves everyone. Literally everyone, it’s not just a lefty thing. No one will touch it. Left, right-leaning. We fucking love our free healthcare. America, go for it.

KAYLA: I need to marry a British person immediately and move away.

SARAH: Wonderful. Thanks for listening, thank you so much Bex for joining us, everyone get this graphic memoir October 21st. And tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.

KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.