donkeydispatch

[donkeydispatch]

a moment to check the gears and cogs

feel like i want to talk a little on the message of a recent post because i think it is an important point. when i say that you do not need to QUALIFY OR DEFEND your love of tinglers or my work in general, i am pointing out an interesting social anomaly that happens with my art and with queer art.

as an autistic buckaroo i notice patterns, and on social media i see them a lot. little phrases that come up again and again with my art. ��yes THAT chuck tingle’ ‘its ACTUALLY good’ ’my favorite author i have never read’ ‘so bad its good’. these are always added after a POSITIVE comment about me

they also all have something in common. they are trying to distance the posters SINCERE JOY and give them an out socially. it is very very very subtle, but they are all saying ‘yes i like this but here is a sliver of acknowledgment that it is also weird or bad or ironic. in not REALLY fully in'

essentially these are added because it means the poster can escape their very real joy if needed. try applying these phrases to any other popular author. its much more subtle with the first two: ‘i liked all fours by miranda july, yes THAT miranda july. its ACTUALLY good’. what does this imply?

the other examples are a little more blatant but lets try them with other authors anyway. imagine saying ‘youre my favorite author i have never read’ to stephen king. would you EVER say that to someone? what does that imply? how about 'i love your books theyre so bad theyre good'. horrifyingly rude

lets dive into saying 'CHUCK TINGLE is my favorite author i have never read’ sounds unusual when substituting other authors because theyre usually not queer or autistic or making outsider art. to be blunt, why CHUCK gets it all the time is because it really means 'i like chuck tingle but im not gay’

while we have mostly culturally evolved past the idea that saying ‘no homo’ is some kind of joke, that FEELING is still around. it has just burrowed a little deeper. honestly it might never go away, or at least take centuries. remember these people GENUINELY LIKE MY BOOKS but feel they MUST qualify

should also be pointed out that LEFT and LIBERAL people are the ones who say this stuff to chuck. they do not MEAN to harm, and if you ask them directly how they feel about queer or neurodivergent people they would not express the same opinion as their subliminal comments might imply

the final elephant trotting by is while some of this is homophobia and fear of a neurodivergent other, it is also just plain old IRONY POISONING. its conditioning from being raised on an internet where sincerity was ‘cringe' and loving something was a weakness or joke. these problems work in tandem

so whats the point? what can we do? first of all, just recognizing these patterns is a start. i didnt HAVE to write all of this today but i think its important to be aware and to look inward and think about the gears and cogs that churn behind the things we say. NEXT step is trying to push past it

if you have done these things in the past, i want you to know i am NOT AT ALL UPSET. i am not mad or hurt and i do not think any less of you. you can trot by my side any day and you are trying your best to prove love. we are ALL just tryin our best, just consider this a friendly chat between buds

proving love can happen in BIG WAYS and it can happen in SMALL WAYS that we barely see. just take a moment and think ‘WHY am i saying this? WHY am i in this pattern to distance myself from outsider or queer art?’ a little moment of consideration goes a LONG way buckaroos. LOVE IS REAL

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The crowd gathered around the large monitor as the priests ran around, connecting cables and nervously awaiting the signal to awaken God.

"Do it", came the order, and Gary the intern took to the keyboard and started the script that would change the world. This honour was bestowed upon him mostly because he wrote the code and none of the more experienced priests wanted to learn how to use it.

And lo and behold, the processors started to hum and to vibrate, and mysterious words raced on the screen faster than human eyes could read. The crowd whispered, "is this it ?"

But the Words stopped, and Gary swore, and the priests loomed behind him as the crowd read: "Error: could not find drivers for device-1 (0xfcaa12d9)."

"Sorry", said Gary the intern. "Did someone update the machine recently ?"

But that question was met with silence.

The crowd was getting nervous.

"Yeah guys, it's going to take a while, I will probably have to reinstall a bunch of drivers. Can we reschedule for tomorrow ? Or maybe next monday, tomorrow I have to leave early, I've got a dentist appointment."

And so it came to be that the awakening of the AI God was delayed, and the world would be free from its reign for one more day, or until next monday if Gary can't fix it quickly enough.

[donkeydispatch]

more on the hugos (not just 2023)

i am sorry buds but it has to be said: lots of talk about the 2023 hugo awards being fraudulent because of actions of leader dave mccarty. this is true. but if we are going to be REALLY honest there is a difficult truth to accept, ANY past hugos dave ran are likely fraudulent

i do not want to have to say this as it casts a lot of doubt and i honestly do not think there is any action that needs to be taken, we should keep trotting along and give credit to winners, but it should at least be addressed. THIS DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN ONCE, IT GETS NOTICED ONCE

just went back into old emails and dave was IN FACT in charge of both the years i was nominated. will i ever know if there is any legitimacy to those results? was it politically best for me to be nominated but MAKE SURE i dont win? who the heck knows.

of course i am not saying my trot is MORE DESERVING or BETTER than the winners these year (and like i said we should respect these results), but acting as though actions of dave and the committee only effect 2023 seems a little short sighted i am sorry to say. it is much much worse

heres the thing that really bothers me when scoundrels treat outsiders and marginalized buds like this (same feeling i got from texas library banning) CHUCK is suddenly the one who has to wrestle with 'should i speak on this? will i ever be nominated again for ANY award now?' THAT is insidious part

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"This is... Highly unusual, My Lord," said the High Priest in a tone that didn't leave much doubt to how much they didn't like unusual things.

"Is it ? I don't see why. I'm surprised we don't always do it that way, to be honest."

"But why ? Surely receiving the Word of the Gods once is enough."

"I do not doubt Their Word, holy man, I worry about our own inaccuracies. "

"Ah ! But then I see a flaw in your plan, my Lord."

"And what would that be ?"

"You want to summon nine Seers, and let each call on the Gods to tell us the outcome of the war."

"That's the idea, yes."

"So instead of one flawed man and five perfect Gods, you would add more men to the process. Surely that would but skew the balance towards imperfection ?"

The Lord thought about it for a minute.

"Would you agree that your Seers are right more often than they are wrong ?"

"Of course"

"So if, say seven of the nine Seers agree on something, it would be very unlikely that they agreed on the wrong prediction."

"Extremely unlikely," the Priest agreed.

"See ? That's why it will work. A more robust prediction through an ensemble of Seers. If one Seer fails to hear the voice of the Gods, their imperfect hearing shall be balanced by the undoubtedly more reliable hearing of their colleagues."

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[donkeydispatch]

I'm colorblind and according to my trusted assistant, this car is, apparently, "Cocoa Brown".

is this orange or yellow.

[donkeydispatch]

The visitors #2

Back to #1

“You say aliens are talking to you?”

The psychologist had a very good poker face, but not quite good enough to hide her thought process in this particular instance.

“I know. That sounds crazy. That’s why I’m here instead of screaming in the streets with an I BELIEVE carton sign.”

“What… did they tell you?”

“The gist of it was: they are studying humans, they found that we are a reasonably smart and entertaining species to watch, and there isn’t much scientific value in studying us much further, so they’re going to open us up to tourists.”

“Tourists?”

“They said: visitors from the general population.”

“So… where are there?”

“They aren’t really here, not with a flying saucer or anything. They’re all comfy in their own home, wherever that is.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know anything about the stars. Last time I cared about space Pluto was a planet.”

The shrink almost took the bait and opened her mouth to reply, but she was a professional. She let Pluto slide, and refocused on the main issue.

“So they are back there, yet they are here at the same time?”

“They can… connect, I guess, to us? Or, as they say, VISIT us. That’s part of what they’ve been testing with me: the different ways they can visit. They can take the backseat and watch. They can take control and shut me out. Or they can take control and let me watch, which is perhaps even more frightening.”

“And this happened to you?”

“I can feel it when they are watching, and they are doing it at least a couple of hours per day. They rarely take control, that I know of. I have had two blackouts where I assume they were piloting my body — they didn’t do anything worse than entering the wrong house, fortunately. And they’ve taken control once while letting me watch.”

“What did they do, then?”

“Made a sandwich. Ate it. They put too much mayo.”

“Do you drink?”

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The visitors #1

I was one of the first one, maybe one of the luckiest. See, my Visitor was probably one of their scientists, not one of the tourists that would come later. The tourists, they didn’t care about us at all, but the early ones, they wanted to observe and study.

It was just a weird sensation, at first. A tingling in my toes. A pressure in my temples. Nothing so out of ordinary that it would worry me. Then the constant impression of being watched — that was more unnerving. Now the symptoms are well known, obviously, and everyone recognizes what’s happening when they start, but as I said I was one of the first one. We didn’t know anything, then. I just thought I was stressed, a bit burned out, losing my mind a little. Like everyone else on this fucking planet, you might say.

Anyway. It came and went and I didn’t do anything about it, until I found myself in a random house surrounded by confused and angry people with no memory of how I got there.

“Sorry,” I said, “where am I?”

“In our house, as we’ve been yelling at you for the past ten minutes, and we would like you to kindly fuck off if you don’t want us to call the police.”

I fucked off and looked around, and I wasn’t very far from my home, just a couple of blocks away. I thought, I must have zoned out somehow, had a little episode. Let’s not see too much into it, right? Still, I was getting a little bit worried, now. Shrinks aren’t on my budget, so I did the next best thing and went on the good ol’ internet to see if anyone was having the same stuff happen to them.

Two theories quickly appeared: carbon monoxide, and aliens. I went with the first one and got a CO monitor, and apparently my boiler works very well and isn’t trying to poison me. That was the good news. The bad news was… well, option two. Aliens.

For the next few days, it was back to normal. Tingling toes, pressured temples, constant paranoia. All good. Then I heard the Voice. Not in my head: in my whole body. In my soul.

HELLO.

“Uh… Hi?”

Silence. Apparently, this friendly voice didn’t plan ahead too much.

APOLOGIES FOR INCONVENIENCE FROM VISIT. PRELIMINARY STUDY IS OVER. DO YOU WISH TO BE INFORMED OF THE RESULTS?

Again, I saw two possible explanations here: either Elon Musk or some other asshole had put some device in my head while I wasn’t looking and had sold my brain off to some telemarketer… or aliens.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Silence, again.

APOLOGIES FOR CONFUSION. YOU ARE SUBJECT #73 (NUMBERS RANDOMLY ASSIGNED) IN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY OF HOMO SAPIENS ON EARTH. OBSERVATION PHASE IS NOW CONCLUDED. ETHICAL BOARD REQUIRES US TO OFFER RESULTS TO SUBJECTS AFTER INVESTIGATION.

If this is how I become mad, I thought, my madness is weird and boring at the same time.

“Who are you? How can I hear you? How can you hear me?”

ANSWERS: QUESTION OF IDENTITY DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO OUR SPECIES. SCIENCE TOO ADVANCED TO BE EXPLAINED TO HOME SAPIENS. SAME.

“Well that’s a cop out. Fine. Give me the fucking results.”

[donkeydispatch]

The most beautiful girl?

She was the most beautiful girl in all the land, you say.

Really? But what does that tell us? Nothing, that’s what. I mean, we would have to first know what beautiful means in this land of yours, wouldn’t we?

Are we in a land where people like big butts and cannot lie? Are they standing in awe of huge bazongas? Or are they falling for green eyes and freckled skins?

Don’t tell us she’s beautiful. Tell us what part of her beauty catches the eye.

Because if we need to really understand a people, we need to understand what makes them horny.

[donkeydispatch]

The Mayor of Donkey City

There once was a Donkey.

Donkey was the Mayor of Donkey City. They were duly elected but, really, who else could have been? Certainly not Duck, who begged for breadcrumps, nor Rat, who ate them in their wake. Bee was a useful member of the community, but behind her back she was framed as a Stinger, even though she only ever stung in self-defense.

One who would really love to take the job was Horse. He went everywhere saying: am I not the fairest of the Equidae? Am I not the strongest? Isn’t my mane the softest? Isn’t my neigh the most harmonious? But the citizens were not fooled. They saw that Donkey worked harder, and was always there to entertain the children, all the while Horse was looking aloof.

Also, you wouldn’t catch Donkey with a fucking cop on their back charging at demonstrators.

[donkeydispatch]

Midnight Pals: The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka: hey everyone Kafka: I guess I’ll tell a Kafka: Kafka: [world weary sigh] Kafka: I’m sorry I’ve just been Kafka: so depressed

Kafka: what’s the point of anything Kafka: the world is an unfeeling labyrinth of nonsensical rules constraining us at every turn King: gee franz it’s not so bleak as all that Kafka: and also I’m ugly King: now that just isn’t true

King: how can you say you’re ugly, franz? King: you’re a good looking guy Kafka: I’m hideous Kafka: no one look at me Kafka: I’m just a big gross cockroach with big gross cockroach body Kafka: someone should squash me Kafka: I suck

King: I don’t understand franz King: you’re a good looking guy and all the ladies love you King: how can you say these things about yourself? Kafka: [puts on hoodie] Poe: wait a second Poe: I think I understand what’s happening King: what? Barker: I’m gonna say it Poe: no clive don’t Poe: clive you can’t just King: what’s happening? Poe: you need to let franz work this out Barker: no I’m gonna say it King: guys what are we talking about

Barker: hey franz I hear you’re depressed Barker: well here’s a question for you Kafka: [wearing hoodie] yeah Barker: you ever think about what if you were a girl Kafka: Kafka: what Kafka: WHAT

Kafka: OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU Kafka: WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT Kafka: OH MY GOD Barker: haha you’re welcome Poe: clive this isn’t funny Kafka: OH MY GOD

Poe: clive did you really have to start this Barker: what? Barker: franz gets to have an existential crisis Barker: which will be pretty funny Barker: and joanne is gonna get to be really really mad Barker: which will be HILARIOUS Barker: really, I see this as win win Poe: for you, maybe

[donkeydispatch]

THE PRINCE IN NEW YORK

The Prince is going to have a premiere in New York City on the 15th of February, to celebrate the release of the filmed version on Nebula!

If you want to come and walk the red carpet with me, tickets are FREE and exclusively for Nebula Subscribers! You can register for them by clicking the link!

I’m so excited, I can’t wait to see some of you there! The show will be released on Nebula the following day, the 16th, and it’s also going to be screened in selected cinemas in the US in the near future, so if you can’t make it to New York then you’ll still get a chance to watch it!

I CAN’T WAIT AAAAAAAA

https://ti.to/abigailthorn/theprince

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Hey guys, you know about the Same Energy website right? has someone made a post about that? Cuz otherwise im gonna sing its praises to high heaven for its artistic references