Huevember day 15: Deep Frost

The dungeon is ready for its next victim. ❄️✨❄️

Hello!

Recently I had the honour of illustrating a new cover for Help Wanted by J. Emery for the book's fifth anniversary. This book about exploring gender and aceness was instrumental to my own understanding of myself, and it's been a dream come true to get to work on a new cover for this book!

If you're interested, you can check it out on ebook retailers.

Happy birthday Leslie Cheung!

Hong Kong-Canadian actor and singer-songwriter Leslie Cheung, born on the 12th of September 1956. He was openly bisexual, and portrayed queer characters in his films and music videos, refusing to bow to pressure from censors.

Hello!

Recently I had the honour of illustrating a new cover for Help Wanted by J. Emery for the book's fifth anniversary. This book about exploring gender and aceness was instrumental to my own understanding of myself, and it's been a dream come true to get to work on a new cover for this book!

If you're interested, you can check it out on ebook retailers.

This is.... Absurdly cute. What the fuck.

It's worth noting that the reason the beaver wants the water to be deeper in the first place is that the Beaver is using the deep water as a pantry:

All summer and fall, beavers gather up branches with the leaves they actually eat, and store it in the deep end of the Pond, where the cold water and limited oxygen keep the leaves fresh all winter, so when it's negative 20 outside, a beaver can take a dip out of it's lodge, grab some refrigerated leaves in the (relatively) warmer water and go back to it's cozy little nap hole while everything else is out there suffering and eating bark or the like.

So it's less "there's a leak in my house" and more "OH SHIT THE FRIDGE!!"

Dude has a death wish

Delighted to announce this bird is real and is a corvid.

Truly the family that just keeps giving.

I haven’t seen it in the notes yet, so afaik, here’s the source of that video! So now you can see the funny poison bird much more clearly.

It was taken by a biologist that studies birds so it seems like he knows what he’s doing. For the most part. Here’s his caption:

You all know that he 100% licked his fingers after handling that bird

I can’t leave this in the tags, I’m sorry.

An Open Letter to New York Times Subscribers

Hello,

I am writing to encourage you to cancel your subscription to the New York Times, in light of their consistently aggressively biased, irresponsible, and shoddy reporting on trans issues and stacking of their op-ed section with transphobic voices.

This is not a new problem, but it’s one that the NYT has compounded and doubled down on over the last few years. The open letter published yesterday is a remarkably civil overview of the issues with their reporting and the material harm that reporting has done; it doesn’t even touch on the op-ed stuff, which is absolutely vile. The NYT’s official response was to dismiss the signatories–including hundreds of NYT contributors and thousands of readers and other media professionals (including me)–as “activists” working at odds with the NYT’s nominal goal of journalistic integrity. The next day–today–they headlined their op-ed section with a defense of J.K. Rowling, who has done more to misinform and stoke the fires of transphobia–in both practice and official policy–than any other public figure, comparing her “persecution”–being correctly identified as transphobic–to that experienced by Salman Rushdie, and repeatedly misgendering trans men as women.

As a former journalist, I consider the NYT’s reporting on trans issues unconscionable; as a trans person, I find it incredibly scary. NYT articles–ones misreported to an extent that has triggered open criticism from major medical organizations–have been used to justify some of the most aggressive anti-trans legislation this and last season. That the “paper of record” has decided to advocate for our dehumanization puts the dignity and lives of people like me in active jeopardy, and regardless the quality of their other work, I don’t think there’s a conscionable way to continue to support them. Yours, Jay Edidin

I do GEE-ORG because what are memes if not to get even more chaotic??

It’s important to recognize the difference between “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because I’m willfully ignoring how suspension of disbelief, fantasy, and sci-fi work and just trying to be obnoxious about how unrealistic this is”, and “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because there are actually some intriguing worldbuilding possibilities if we use them that can add another dimension to the story”, and “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because considering the real-world implications of how this would happen are FUCKING HILARIOUS”

The union busting firms are scared

As a fine dining cook, I found work in a union workplace around a year ago. My 40 hours a week are guaranteed except for Jan/feb/mar when there’s not enough customers, I get paid almost twice what I did at any other restaurant, if I work overtime, (more than 8 hours in one day, or more than 40 in a week), I actually get overtime pay, (and it’s 1.5x my normal rate!). I get holiday pay, and in addition I get to either bank or pay out my holidays if I work those days, (either a paid day off when I want it, in addition to the holiday pay, or I get paid an add’l 8 hours at 1.5x that week). I also get two floating holidays, 4 paid random sick days, 2 paid family sick days, and 4 paid “doctor’s note” sick days, (paid out by our health insurance), as well as general allowance to take as many unpaid sick days as I want without worrying for my job security. (I’ve been told that taking multiple months off is where we start to be concerned about abuse, so if I want to do that, I can go through our leave of absence procedures instead, where I’m allowed three 2-week periods a year generally for whatever reason I want, (If my manager wants to disagree, he has to get the union president’s approval), and after that it’s up to my manager to decide if he’ll accept them). I get two weeks of paid vacation time a year, and an add’l week per year for every 5 years I work there. We get our legally mandated breaks, which, I know that sounds like a low bar, but taking anything other than a smoke break in a kitchen?!?! Unheard of! I get two 15′s and a lunch every shift! I get to sitdown and rest my legs and not get flak for it! I get a bonus at the end of the year, there’s official procedures for if my manager isn’t happy with me or wants to get rid of me, (three meetings, during which my union representative has to be present), (and getting rid of my classification doesn’t work, there’s rules for how someone ‘bumps’ other people if classifications are gotten rid of), and severance pay for when full-time employees that are downsized out of the company, there’s a pension plan, like . . . Guys, I have a 40-page handbook which details all of the rights my union has won me, and believe me, I’ve never had any of these at any prior workplace. And you know what my union dues are? $4 a paycheck. Of course I’m going to pay my union dues for all of those benefits.

Reblogging for this incredibly thorough explanation of what it's like to actually have a contract in place at a union workplace. I reblog a fair number of posts about how people should organize, but if you're like me, you might not know exactly what that can get you until you've actually gone through the process. Every contract is different because you bargain for what makes sense for your particular workplace, and every few years you re-negotiate with the employer to improve things in the next contract, but some things (like the right to have union representation when you talk to your boss about leave or discipline) are universal.

It's worth every penny of your dues, I promise.

Everyone wants a pet Displacer Beast.

But no one wants to be woken up early by a hungry Displacer Beast insisting it's breakfast time.

I had to draw him

I don't think enough people have seen this cat yet

Second brush test, this time with Inuyasha!

I'm VERY HAPPY with my brushes, so expect to see them on my ko-fi shop soon! (supporters get it for free!)

Supporters on Ko-fi and Patreon get access to his art in it's full A3 glory \o/

vergil

My Nero sketch for my collab with @tonigiacopelliart You can check out her finished version here!

PT-BR

Lancei conto novo!

https://maybarros.com.br/journey-home/

ENG

New short story!

http://maybarros.com.br/en/journey-home

Made an observation from looking at you all talking about your teenage experiences.

(if you're in this picture multiple times then congrats you get extra swords)