Episode 0: Teaser

Welcome to Sex Sells, a new heated rivalry podcast from two queer women who love mm romance, fanfiction, and smut. This episode is a little introduction to your hosts, em and rainbow, and an overview of what they'll be covering in this limited series. 

New episodes drop on Mondays, June 1 through July 20.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok

Intro/Outro courtesy of magpiemusic on pixabay

Transcript

Rainbow 0:08

Hello everyone and welcome to Sex Cells, a new Heated Rivalry podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Rainbow, They Shee.

Em 0:14

And I'm the other one of your hosts, Em. And boy oh boy, are we excited to be back in the studio? This is our second podcast and our second gay podcast.

Rainbow 0:24

Because if we're gonna be talking about something on mics, it's gonna be gay because we're what? Gay. Um, and heated rivalry is just like, I feel like at this point, like the pinnacle of gay media.

Em 0:36

It was the cultural phenomena of 2025. It felt like it came out of the clear blue sky. We didn't know about the series at all until we saw that little water bottle scene teaser. And then it came out and it is a very good piece of media. Now, some people may disagree, and we're gonna talk about that uh in our actual podcast. But this is just a little chance to say hello, give you the syllabus. Why are why are we doing this show? Well, I have my PhD in slash. No, you know, there's been such an interesting mainstream reaction to heated rivalry and fan fiction and all of this as a whole, which used to be such a corner of the internet, is now kind of been pulled into the spotlight and a lot of discourse has come from it, and we want to just dive into it. And for me personally, and I think you agree too, heated rivalry, the the haters dubbed it as a show for straight girls, and that is so deeply wrong. And as two queer women who have always loved all queer art, including MLM, uh, that's deeply wrong. So we really wanted to give you our perspective as people who have genuinely loved this type of media, why we do.

Rainbow 1:43

And not to say that there aren't other queer people, queer women, you know, people of all gender talking about heated rivalry, but we have a lot to say.

Em 1:53

We want to bring our two cents to the table.

Rainbow 1:55

Yeah, I I think we were talking about the show and why we connected with it so much, and it really felt like we felt seen in a way. And not that we felt seen by the representation of like gay men, but we felt seen in the kind of storytelling we were getting, you know, the fan fiction of it all, which we're we are gonna get into all of that. Yes. Um, but just like the way the story was being told, like the fact that it really is just like for those of you who watch like sports anime or sports media, these are like the little bits that like you usually write about in a fan fiction, and they made a whole TV show about it.

Em 2:28

It felt like someone pulled this out of my head and put it on the TV screen. So we we gotta talk about it. So we're gonna have each episode talking about an episode of the show. So next episode will be episode one, and we'll be talking about episode one. It's not gonna be a shot-for-shot kind of recap, but we're going to talk about major themes that pop up in every episode and again the discourse that was sparked by that episode, as well as recurring themes.

Rainbow 2:52

This is not a spoiler-free podcast. We are going to be talking about, you know, episode one through episode six. Like, you know, if you haven't watched the show yet, which, like, what are you doing with your life if you haven't watched it? But I will say we have not read the books yet. Yet. We will, we want to. Um, so we really are going to be talking about the show itself as a story. Um, and so we'll have six episodes, but then we're going to do an episode for the first two books in the Game Changer series. So we'll talk about Game Changer and we'll talk about Heated Rivalry, the books written by Rachel Reed, and we'll talk about how that relates to this show created by Jacob Tierney and how these two artists have portrayed this story that we've all come to love so much. And the first episode, well, this episode is coming out May 31st, and then our first episode will be posted the next day, June 1st, to kick off Pride Month. And then we're posting every Monday, right? Every Monday. So the schedule, you know, all things go well will go June 1st through July 20th. And then we will take a hiatus until season two comes out. Um, and we haven't decided how we want to handle season two yet. If we want to do after each episode drops, or if we want to wait and consume it as a whole and then, you know, talk about it.

Em 4:00

It could be fun to do a uh reacting as it happens, you know. It feels like the fever dream, it's not totally over, but you know, it's mainly past. Yes. And so it'd be cool to do something as it's coming out, but we just love every asset of it. You can tell that it's a director who took the story seriously, it's a writer who loved what she was doing, and our main actors are I we think incredible. So Yeah.

Rainbow 4:24

We're not gonna get into a lot of the like meta stuff. We aren't gonna talk too much about like the internet or the interviews or the press store or anything or what Hudson and Connor are up to now or anything. Yeah, I think we're mainly focusing on their portrayal and their acting skills. But I mean, and you know, the internet is they're all over the internet right now. So you can see what's going on with them. You don't need this podcast to know about that.

Em 4:45

Yeah, it's very interesting. It feels like this is our uh someone on Twitter said that, like, you know, the way that gay guys like Queen Out over Lady Gaga, etc., is like Shane or I should say Connor and Hudson Hudson are that for lesbians, and I think that that's so true.

Rainbow 5:00

Yeah, yeah, it's very it's well, and they just uh I, you know, I I I don't even know what I was gonna say there.

Em 5:06

You know, it's so hard. We because we already just want to get into it right now, but this is just the intro.

Rainbow 5:10

Yeah, this is just the intro, and and I think we've kind of given you an idea of what we're gonna be doing. Um, so again, our episode one um covering rookies will be dropping tomorrow, June 1st. If you're listening to this the day it comes out, if you're listening to this far into the future, um, you know, June 1st, 2026.

Em 5:28

And you know, if you like heated rivalry, we want you to listen. But this is specifically for our fellow girls and gays who love fic, who love this kind of shit, who have been reading and writing and just loving these kind of stories forever. It's for us.

Rainbow 5:44

And not to say that we do not welcome listeners who were not experienced in fanfiction or gay shipping or MM romance beforehand. Like you're obviously welcome to listen. Of course, anyone is But there's gonna be a lot of fanfic talk, I think. Yes, absolutely. And we we hope that that is not alienating. We rather want you to feel like you are being brought into a pre-existing community, a community that has existed for decades.

Em 6:08

Maybe we'll spark a little interest. We're gonna have hashtags that would like be tags for AO3 stories to go with each episode. We're gonna talk about rivals to lovers and the how popular of a ship dynamic that is and why. So stick around.

Rainbow 6:22

Yeah, we think it's gonna be fun. And you know, we're not gonna be on like all of the socials or anything, but we do want to post on Instagram and TikTok about our episodes and share things and use that as a way to connect. Um, our DMs will be open for some nice, kind, compassionate discussion.

Em 6:39

We love audience interaction so far for us, has been a lot of fun. Um, if you are interested in a little show called Haiku, our first podcast is Fly, a queer Hikue podcast. Um, and that was a really great experience. We did that for two years and took a little break, and now we're excited to be back in the studio. But we're excited to see what this this is gonna be like.

Rainbow 6:58

It's a different piece of media, it's more current, it's people are crazy about it, so yeah, I would say like definitely overlapping fan bases, but like different fan bases in a lot of ways. I mean, anime versus western live action. And yeah, I'm I'm really excited to dive into it. Will you come to the cottage? Oh my god, where I'm going to the cottage! Oh, okay, well, I think that just about wraps everything up. Oh, just a quickie to get us started. Yeah, you know, just a little, I mean, yeah, nothing like heated rivalry. That was the longest sex scene we got. Just a little frauding. No big deal. We're really excited, and you know, keep an eye out every Monday for episodes. And, you know, feel free to subscribe so you get those directly in your feed.

Em 7:41

All right, guys. Well, that'll wrap it up for today, but we'll see you tomorrow on the ice.