#the fine print is important

[grabby-smitten]

[romans-art]

for those of you who like process pics, here's a few steps in the process for this piece

[garaks-huge-naturals]

the frustrating aromantic representation of chuck tingle's "bury your gays"

i feel like i should preface this by saying that i'm a huge chuck tingle fan and, representation aside, i greatly enjoyed his book. so this is not like, a hate take down. this will contain spoilers for bury your gays, you are warned.

the parts i have issues with will be more towards the end and are marked.

a quick synopsis: misha is a queer horror writer who is told to either kill off his gay characters after getting them together, or let them live and be straight (for the algorithm, ratings, etc). while he is reeling from this he begins being stalked by the monsters/villains of his past works. plot happens and these monsters are really nanobot contractions from his studio's fx company. misha survives these attempts on his life (and his boyfriend's and best friend's), eventually giving a heartfelt award speech about the need for a shift towards queer joy. when he comes back to work the entire studio is like decked out in pride flags and the now stereotypically gay management tells him that queer is IN! even better, it's profitable (according to the algorithm). but these nanobots are still out there. so they go to the fx studio to insert a virus that takes them down, the best friend, tara, being an unprecedented aroace that the algorithm has no information on due to a lack of content, is able to circumvent the nanobots and take them down!! happy ending!! yippee!!

i'll be going in order of the book, touching on the times where tara's identity is relevant

tara's aspecness is established almost immediately when she says "you know i don't swing that way...i don't swing any way, baby." classic aspec joke, i have no issue with this.

its first explicit mention is on page 42, "tara is aromantic and asexual, which has always made me appreciate her take on relationship advice." ok this part is so real. we are so good at that.

ok now we get into the main stuff. Tara says, "do you realize how hard it is to tell your parents you're asexual?" this part is true, and in comparison to misha coming out as gay. and i really appreciate it highlights the strange societal position aspecs are in!! it's hard to affirm an identity defined by a lack. and even harder for baby wanting parents to accept an identity that is largely incompatible with the nuclear family model. as this is in reference to like sex -> having a child, mentioning just the asexuality makes sense. but it is still weird to not mention how hard explaining aromanticism would be considering aces can more easily have straight passing relationships. let's begin a tally: ace mentions: 2, aro mentions: 1.

(!) time skip we are now towards the end. misha is giving his heartfelt speech, "i call on all of you to usher in a new era of stories where the gay, or bi, or lesbian, or asexual, or pansexual, or trans character lives happily ever after. buy those stories. make those stories profitable." we are now entering the territory here i begin to get a little angry. fandoms and drama in shows are so closely tied with romance. they are profitable. they are like, the lifeblood of ao3, etc. people also have this notion that you need a partner to be happy, and that this is a universal goal. so characters and story arcs that stray away from this tend to be, y'know, less profitable. and since this is extremely relevant to aromanticism as an identity and important to debunk, the lack of a mention of aromanticism is frankly stunning. our stories are not wanted, we have no characters to live happily ever after. because we are not profitable. we don't get that joy. so where are we? this is a nitpick but i find it strange that misha would forget to mention like, entirely half of his friend's identity. ace mentions: 3, aro mentions: 1

(!!!) this is the most egregious part to me. when i read this part i was genuinely so stunned that i started crying. ok so i've established that aros have very little representation. it is a fact that there is less aro representation than ace representation. especially in regards to non-ace aros. "there's a hero clad in pink, purple, and blue, the bi one...this continues on and on until every aspect of the community has been covered...tara steps up next to me, her eyes locked on the poster. "there' no asexual hero...they've got everyone up there besides an ace character...every fucking time." ok. so. a lack of representation for aspecs is like a Thing That We All Know. as also established, aros are not algorithm friendly, so i just see no plausible way that there is aro representation but not ace representation. and there's just this like, poetic irony to this. that aros are so forgotten, so uncared for, that the author of the fucking book forgot to even mention them. because there are three ways this shakes out here. either there is an aro in the line up and dr. tingle deprived us of the validation we need to justify our anger for a lack of representation (which effects us all but aros more). or he just straight up forgot to include us. or he's grossly conflating the two identities. there's no good option. anyway. ace mentions: 5, aro mentions: 1

here we have yet another mention of tara being ace, yet not aro, "my name's tara. i'm the asexual in the corner everyone's been ignoring." would be funny if aromanticism hadn't been grossly ignored once again. ace mentions: 6, aro mentions: 1

(!!!) time for tara to save the day (girlboss). "just pull up all the information you have on asexual and aromantic heroes...oh wait, that's gonna be pretty fucking difficult because there are almost no human asexual heroes represented in popular media, are there." like actually like the fuck. what the fuck. there are so little aro heroes that the author forgot about the one he had!! there are so little aro heroes that the author fucking forgot to mention how few there are. incredible. ace mentions: 10, aro mentions: 2 (ace mentions not quoted here but part of the rant)

so. thats the end of the book. it seems to me that dr. tingle might be a little confused. he's been a great supporter in the past of the aspec community. but there is a pattern of aro erasure in this book that frankly, pisses me off! but wait, there is more!

dr. tingle. babygirl. bestie. what the fuck is this? op explicitly said aroace character. and what do you do? you reblog with only an ace flag. do you not remember your character's own identity? or do you not acknowledge aros outside or aces? let's look at some more quotes from this post.

wow thanks for the solidarity dr. tingle (like, actually)!

what is this? whoopty fucking doo! aros totally dropped after their initial mention? again! but there is simply no precedent for this!!

i'd like to end this with a quote by dr. tingle.

glad you remembered the aces. maybe next time, remember the marginalized people you leave behind.

[sysig]

Some possible* Tala stickers :D (Patreon)

[settingorange]

Guess I'll make a bunch of tiny shoes out of clay 😐

[thybrotherskeeper]

(signing the contract)

It’s a banana ball python :D

[It's very beautiful. Oh- thank you. I don't believe I've said that yet.]

[howlingdemon13]

the fact that i don't need a ref to draw polnareff is both a testament to my confidence and also a major tell that i'm probably not okay.

[immaterial-girl]

btw if there are any other young americans out there who are extremely intimidated by filing your taxes and don’t know where to start, i really recommend H&R block. I use the free one because my taxes are pretty straightforward as a single person, and even when ive moved across state lines like 5 times i can still do it with H&R block for free

just go to their website, make an account, and you’ll have to click “yes i want to use the free version yes i promise NO i don’t want to give you money” a couple times but i find it really direct and simple and it walks you through the whole process in one sitting. it takes me less than one afternoon every year

[kirbyddd]

they've kinda always been my muses tbh

[singull]

ahhh the woes of when some rando walks into the shop at work wanting to sell me something to sell i the gift shop out of the blue.

like bruh…this shoulda been an email.

i’m not sure which is worse tho…the ones that come in completely unprepared (like…motherfuckers can’t even find pictures of their product in their photos app because they don’t bother to organize that shit into a specific folder), or the ones that just show up with a big box of their shit and a pushy attitude.

either way, they both suck and i usually ghost them once they finally leave.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Since I based my TMAGP!Gerry and Needles off their voice actors, I figured I’d do the same for the main cast. Subject to change of course, but I’ve really come around to loving these freaks.

[theemperorsfeather]

New member of staff asks for a couple examples of our schedules showing certain things on them (which I am not sure we have, as they are uncommon items, and not all proposals require graphical schedules), and I have to wonder if he first asked the senior person on the project for help with the schedule and the senior - who is chronically, perpetually Too Busy - was all "oh ask Marketing" instead of taking the fucking time to think about what timelines actually might make sense.

[my-shields-are-down]

Yikes! Looks like the SAGAFTRA Negotiating Committee Dropped the ball on the whole AI side of things.

Whole chain of tweets here. https://x.com/justinebateman/status/1723505358227042601?s=61

[spicymotte]

Can I ask what you applied to inprnt with?

when you want to sell prints, you have to

make an account

apply with 3 artworks of your choice

wait for the community to vote for you. if they think the quality of your art is decent, you'll get to sell prints on inprnt. if not, you'll have to try again later

personally, I used my favorite artworks (so, mostly Nico Robin fanart lol) and got accepted really quick, after 1-2 hours of voting

[futureghost97]

question: has any printer been reliable ever?

[televocation]

i really wanted to do some substantial damage.

"I can recover from this faster than you could ever fucking imagine."

Despite the audible distortion and repressed laughter in his voice, it's a remarkable practice of self-restraint that Vox doesn't immediately laugh way-too-hysterically in Alastor's face, or act like an idiot in some other way. It's tempting, as it always is, to rise to the bait. But getting under people's skin is what Alastor is best at, and like it or not, he's apparently here to stay. It'd just be inconvenient if Vox flew completely off the handle every time they ever interact.

"Hahaha, substantial damage---that's a really good one, Alastor. That's---whew. I forgot you could be funny." The display on his screen glitches, but doesn't ultimately move an inch. Reduce flow of norepinephrine, increase serotonin. The instructions are laid out in binary, but Vox repeats them fervently in his own memory like a desperate reminder. "Well, clearly that's not exactly on the table for now, so why don't you get back to fucking off?"

taskmaster. / accepting.