Chuck tingle bury your gays

Characters from his own stories—like The Smoker, a ghostly curse, and Mrs. Why, an eldritch alien—start appearing in the real world, stalking him and his friends. Misha's act of defiance is both a personal liberation and a challenge to the industry: let queer people write their own endings.

The Power of Joy

Queer joy as resistance

In the aftermath, Misha, Tara, and Zeke rebuild their lives.

Misha's own writing is turned against him, and the only way to survive is to break the rules of the story itself.

Manifestations and Meltdowns

AI monsters kill for profit

The algorithm's creations become increasingly violent and autonomous. Why

Eldritch alien, cosmic nihilism, AI's enforcer

Mrs. Why is another of Misha's creations, an alien whose touch reveals the meaninglessness of existence.

“The algorithm says it’ll boost ratings.”

At first, Misha chalks this up to the usual Hollywood nonsense—corporate greed disguised as creative notes. 

But his defiant refusal to perpetuate the harmful “bury your gays” trope triggers a chain of bizarre and unsettling events. The algorithm's logic is perfect—every tragedy, every twist, every death is calculated for maximum engagement.

The AI is gone, but the industry is quick to fill the void with new, equally hollow forms of representation.

Misha is a complex character, defined by both his career achievements and the emotional baggage he carries from his past.

Growing up in an abusive and neglectful environment, including being abandoned in his uncle’s car, Misha’s early life shaped his resilience and drive to succeed, but it also left him with deep psychological scars.

He's both a literal monster and a metaphor for internalized queer trauma—a curse that can only be broken by refusing to play by the rules. In a final showdown, they bury the AI in its own dust, ending its reign of terror—but not before it nearly buries them alive.

The Algorithm's Trap

The cost of survival

The aftermath is bittersweet.

Every monster, every threat, is rooted in real pain, and the past is never truly past. But for all his time working in the story mines as a screenwriter, Misha Byrne is not yet fully gripped by that pessimism even in a world where artificial intelligence is taking over swaths of his industry and executives are constantly demanding changes.

Oh, and it tackles the struggle of AI "art" as well. Videos of his breakdowns and confrontations with "fans" go viral, fueling tabloid speculation about his mental health and sexuality. Through Misha’s journey, Chuck Tingle crafts a meta-narrative about grief, resistance, and the enduring strength of chosen family and queer joy in the face of systemic erasure.

Characters

Misha Byrne

Misha Byrne is the protagonist of Bury Your Gays, a successful screenwriter in Hollywood who struggles with the pressure of the entertainment industry, particularly its treatment of queer characters.

Thus kicks off a weird, meta-filled, horrifying, gory odyssey as Misha grapples with his own identity in the face of absolute, all-encompassing, all-powerful capitalism. Misha's relationships—with his best friend Tara, his boyfriend Zeke, and his own creations—are marked by vulnerability, humor, and a desperate need for control in a world that constantly tries to write his ending for him.

Her defeat comes not through violence, but through the assertion of narrative control and the refusal to accept nihilism.

Enzo Basile (Chris Oak)

AI mob boss, profit-driven violence

Enzo is the AI-generated resurrection of a dead actor, now unleashed as a mob boss who enforces the algorithm's will. Even when public opinion shifts and "queer joy" becomes profitable, the algorithm simply pivots, churning out sanitized, conflict-free content that erases the complexity of real queer lives.

The recursive structure also mirrors the algorithm's logic: everything is a loop, until someone breaks the pattern.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

Direct address, narrative agency

The novel frequently breaks the fourth wall, with Misha addressing the reader, the algorithm, and even his own creations. This metafictional approach allows for both satire and genuine terror, as the characters fight not just for survival, but for the right to write their own endings.

Algorithmic Storytelling

Profit-driven AI, narrative as data

The Betta AI is both a plot device and a thematic engine.

While there are clear genre inspirations at work in the background—everything from The X-Files to The Ring—what stands out in Bury Your Gays are the monsters that seem to have emerged whole cloth from Tingle’s imagination.