Moods and Mental Illness

This walrus is fucken lost.

But Wales has lost its collective shit about it. They’re generally keeping its location secret to keep people away, but we get updates every day if it’s still here, if it’s happy, if it’s healthy. We think it was in Ireland about two weeks ago, which is interesting, because it is not actually native to Ireland either. Why is it here? No one knows.

In attempting to climb aboard a dinghy in Tenby it capsized it.

It then proceeded to Tenby harbour where it tried to climb aboard a fishing boat.

Some facts about Wally:

She is named after Where’s Wally because she is hard to spot

She was previously in Ireland, and then secluded beaches in Pembrokeshire, but has really taken a shine to Tenby, which is a delightful village

She has a scar on one flipper but it’s long-healed and doesn’t seem to bother her

She is the southern-most walrus ever spotted in the wild!

The current theory as to how she got here is that she fell asleep on an ice floe that drifted south, but she’s not bothered about returning yet

She’s believed to be two years old

Her gender is still a bit of a mystery but we seem to be leaning female

The Western Telegraph has opted for male pronouns, and is being very firm that Wally is male, although other news outlets are still all over the place. But what has Wally been up to the past few days?

He is rapidly gaining weight, and is still giving no cause for concern to either of the organisations watching him (which are the RSPCA a bit and Welsh Marine Life Rescue a lot; this is funny though because a walrus is so far outside of the wheelhouse of either of those organisations like we’re all just guessing here, lads)

His delinquent ways have continued - he has now attempted to climb onto multiple buoys (all unsuccessfully) and at one point nearly got a mooring rope stuck around his neck. 

Has he learned from this?

FOLKS HE HAS NOT!

He is now a Fashion Icon. He has surfaced multiple times wearing accessories in his moustache. Mostly this has been shells, but three days ago he upped his fashion game by wearing this starfish:

What an Icon.

Friends, I took the shittest photo there has ever been of a Walrus. But I absolutely did get to see em.

A lifeboat wandered by to check em out at one point, and ey just… sank. Just dropped below the surface like Homer Simpson moving backwards into a hedge. After a while the boat left, and Wally surfaced again.

I can now confirm that ey really, really likes blowing water around like a whale, and also kept eyeing up that buoy next to em.

It’s only a little one, but apparently we’re getting Serious about this walrus, lads - the police are now stepping in to say that anyone interfering with Wally (examples of this interference to date: throwing things at him, taking boats and paddle boards out to him, throwing fish overboard to tempt him closer, etc) is committing a criminal offence and we must send evidence of Assholes to them. So that’s fun!

Meanwhile, the tense stand-off between the RNLI and Wally continues over Who Gets To Use The Lifeboat Slipway. Here is a picture of Wally in full delinquent mode.

Here is the problem with 2,500 lbs of predatory sea potato using the slipway of a lifeboat station as a spa bed: sometimes, canoeists get in trouble near Stackpole and need rescuing and then some underwhelmed Welsh coast guard is going to have to try to chase said predatory sea potato off the slipway so they can launch the boat.

Here is the problem with that scenario: an underwhelmed Welsh coast guard basically views 2,500 lbs of predatory sea potato as a sort of ornery gelatinous cow, and so will try to do this with, and I am not making this up, a broom. But a ton of overgrown seal has no fear of brooms, so the attempt is not entirely successful under time-sensitive conditions while canoeists are actively drowning 10 miles away.

Solution? An air horn.

Which did work long enough to get the boat out, and then Wally clambered back aboard barely minutes later and fell asleep again. So trick learned, I guess.

Anyway, since I’ve apparently become Tumblr’s primary Wally journalist, I thought I’d go for a cheeky visit again today so I could report on their condition FIRST HAND (you’re all welcome, I have incredible integrity). Today I tried using a binocular over my phone camera with was extremely stressful and moderately successful - and I have two pieces of NEWS.

Story the First

Two dinghies with divers aboard suddenly turned up and sailed right up to them. There are Welsh Marine Life Rescue volunteers everywhere, and one woman immediately yelled “YOU ARE TOO CLOSE. MOVE AWAY.”

Everyone on the cliff went silent. The boats went closer.

“YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW,” yelled the beachmaster. “MOVE AWAY.”

Tumblrs, they did not.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” she yelled. “MOVE AWAY.”

At which point, the whole fucken cliff starts joining in, because Welsh people are Like That.

“Move away!”

“Leave ‘im alone, mun!”

“Move away, butt, what you doing!”

“He’s the size of an ‘orse, bois, can’t you see ‘im from here?!”

“Bloody move you fucks, you’ll scare ‘im away again!”

(That last one was, I swear, an eighty year old woman.)

The boats, suddenly being yelled at by a whole cliff of Welsh people, sailed away. Later, we followed the beachmaster who was now on a mission, and found her with a couple of community police officers ripping the shit out of the divers. It was very satisfying.

Story the Second

I mentioned my binocular and phone trick. It came in handy. At first it gave me some very satisfying shots for a distance picture on a phone camera:

But, you know, whatever.

But THEN I got this picture:

which I got 0.256778 seconds before that majestic Arctic beast of purest beautiful nature untamed FELL OFF THE SIDE OF THE SLIPWAY LIKE A CAT THAT GOT TOO CLOSE TO A TABLE EDGE

1. When did this happen?

I have included many links in this thread to news articles on Wally, each of which is dated, so you can check those for accurate dates; but, xe turned up in Ireland in March 2021, and then made hir way to Pembrokeshire, Wales end of March. Xe reached Tenby a week or so later in April, and now refuses to leave. As of this update (6th May, 2021) xe’s still there and chillin’ - my friend Chris’ louche photo there was taken on Sunday the 2nd May. 

I shall date all updates from now on. Apologies for this uncharacteristic lapse in my journalistic performance. I have let Wally down.

2. “Oh my god do you guys call Waldo Wally?!??”

Folks!! Folks so many of you are doing this!!! But here’s the thing!!!

Where’s Wally is a British series and that’s the original name!!! It has been translated and regionalised around the world, and the name was changed in 28 of them!! A sizeable number don’t even sound like ‘Wally’!!! In France he’s Charlie! In Lithuania he’s Jonas! In Arabic versions he’s Fuḍūlī!!!

Yet only one nationality is repeatedly reacting with astonishment while assuming theirs is the one true original version!!! Guess which one!!! You have to stop!!! Especially the few who have responded with out and out swearing and aggression when I’ve explained!!! THIS POST IS ABOUT A WALRUS!!!!

3. Is Wally okay in Wales? Does xe need to leave/be moved?

Xe’s currently fine - an Arctic walrus can handle water temperatures of up to 15 degrees celsius, which West Wales is certainly currently accommodating. Xe was also distressingly underweight when first spotted fresh off the ice floe, but we’ve been monitoring hir health and xe’s roughly doubled hir bodyweight and is very healthy. I asked the fishmonger in Tenby if xe’s affecting the catch and the nice man said no and sold me a lemon sole for my mam. So right now, Wally is doing great, all needs met, with no real clashes with other stakeholders (i.e. fishers and that) except for, you know, the one (i.e. the lifeboat people).

However, high summer in Wales is warm enough that the sea will top the temperature threshold. So, we’re expecting Wally to leave by hirself in a month or so, if xe doesn’t decide to move sooner. Whether xe decides to swim all the way back home, or xe starts just moving north along the western coast and next turns up in the Isle of Mann or Scotland to continue hir holiday of the Celtic Ring remains to be seen. But, xe’ll do it hirself eventually, so it’s down to us to just keep hir happy and healthy for as long as xe chooses to stay.

4. I think Wally is female!

Yeah, maybe

5. I think Wally is male!

Very possibly

6. I think walruses have no concept of gender!

Almost definitely

7. What’s Walrus in Welsh?

They’re not native, so the Cymricisation “walrws” is getting a lot of use - but, Welsh is nothing if not poetic, so in official literature it’s “morfarch”, which means “sea stallion” or “sea knight” depending on your dialect.

8. Did they really use a broom and an airhorn on Wally?!

Here is a forlorn coast guard attempting to shift hir with a broom:

And here is the same coastguard attempting to shift hir with an airhorn:

9. I cannot believe this walrus is a delinquent!!!

Very well. Here is Wally’s criminal case file, including photographic evidence of two boarded boats and hir mugshot:

Anyway, Wales is weathering a storm at the minute, so the sea is currently pretty rough - turns out, Wally likes staying out at sea during this time because they’re a sucker for a wave machine, and same, Wally, same, wave machines are banging. What this means is that they aren’t about much at the minute, but as the sea calms over the next few days the prediction is that they’ll return to the slipway, climb aboard and then drop spark the fuck out for a few days to rest.

SO, speaking of that SLIPWAY and the CRIMES of this delinquent…

And it may be the last! Or maybe not, it all depends on what Wally decides to do.

Anyway, it’s 26th May 2021, and to tempt you to click the Read More, I offer these two photos of Wally actually being induced to finally fucken move after the underwhelmed Welsh coast guard had the bright idea of spraying him gently with a hose to mimic rain:

Elegance and grace. What a majestic creature.

BUT, my friends, there have been DEVELOPMENTS!

Datestamp: 30th May, 2021. Uh, Wally has decided on more shenanigans, starting, I shit you not, with continuing that trip of the Celtic Ring by going even further south to fecking Brittany, in France, and yes! Yes, I did make that joke! I did not expect it to come true!! But here we are!!

In fact, he overshot Brittany and hit the town of Les Sables d’Olonne, a bit further south along the coast. Where, NATURALLY, he promptly found a brand new slipway to terrorise, and a brand new piece of maritime safety infrastructure to block.

French fishermen report that he seems “interested” in their boats, and we all know how that will end.

Except, it seems his crimes are starting to catch up with him. Warning for news of minor walrus injury under the cut (he’s fine, no pictures).

Datestamp: 3rd June, 2021. You’ll all recall that the last we saw of our hefty oceanic bandit, he got hit by a boat while trying to steal it in France, as he so often does. Oh no! we all thought. What if Wally is hurt! We hope he recovers! We hope he learns to leave boats alone, and also turns the fuck around and swims to cooler waters!

Folks, he has learned ZERO LESSONS.

HE’S IN LA ROCHELLE

Datestamp 5th June 2021, and he’s in Spain. He’s in Spain. He’s headed for fucken Galicia after all, lads. He’s heading south. Given that my every joking prediction has so far come true, I’m terrified to make the obvious joke that he’s heading for Patagonia. GO TO SCOTLAND, WALLY. GO TO FECKING SCOTLAND.

Anyway, here’s a clip of him in Bilbao, northern Spain, and also, there’s some extra news: after months of back-and-forth and guesswork, we do now have concrete evidence of Wally’s sex, including photographs. NSFW pics under the cut.

Here is a picture of him having climbed aboard yet another boat.

And this article has a link to a video of him boarding a pier back in La Rochelle, to the bemusement of some French fishermen (side note, it is very endearing that the Western Telegraph, a Pembrokeshire newspaper, is still closely following Wally’s adventures).

Anyway, folks I have MIXED news. The good news is, after spending a worrying month heading closer and closer to the equator and then vanishing for two weeks, our fave oceanic chongus has finally, mercifully, turned the fuck around! He’s coming back home apparently, and has turned up in the Isles of Scilly, a small chain of islands off the toe of Cornwall. Hopefully, he’ll take a week there to feed and rest and then continue his journey north. We may yet see him make landfall in Scotland.

Here’s the bad news:

DO YOU WANT TO SEE A WALRUS BEING TOWED?!?

YEAH you do, click the Read More

Well, his crimes were always going to catch up with him eventually.

He’s now sunk multiple boats, and England is a very different place to Wales, so they’re trying to evict him.  “He may prevent emergency response vessels from being immediately operational,” say British Divers Marine Life Rescue, as though he hasn’t already done this repeatedly in Tenby and the solution hasn’t been found to be an airhorn and a garden hose (the results of hardworking Welsh scientists are oft-ignored). In any case, The Walrus Must Go.

Anyway, how to get him to clear off?

Apologies for being so lax with updates, I’m trying to wait for a chunk of news these days in a vain bid to keep this post to a slightly more manageable length (cue hysterical laughter). But, as the number of messages in my inbox demanding news hits twenty three, let’s see what Wally is up to! And lads, there’s some big news!

FOR I BRING GLORIOUS TIDINGS

Okay so last time I posted, Wally had made his way back to Ireland and was having a grand old time finding new boats to sink. That was back in August! So long ago.

Datestamp: 22nd September, 2021, and have I got news for you.

me, who doesnt know the rules of the sport: wow, they did a good job!

  it’s a

This is a great question and one I get frequently after talks. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to answer it here. Let’s do this.

Essentially, I see two ways to write people of color:

1. Intentionally. These are the type of characters I think you’re talking about, the ones you’re afraid of writing disrespectfully. Characters whose very essence is tied to their racial identity. Where race plays a big role in the story. Is your character a Vietnamese woman who has decided to move to Ohio where she grapples with questions of selfhood and culture? Yup, intentional. 

2. Unintentionally. This is when you just write a character whose race isn’t specified. Did you write about a rich celebrity dentist who is having a mid-life crisis? Well that could be a person of any race. In this case, “writing POC” has more to do with casting POC in roles where race isn’t specified.

So when you’re intentionally writing POC characters the best thing to do is listen. Yup, the key to being an ally is the key to being an artist, too. Always do your research. A ton of research. And research in this sense often means collaboration. Make sure that as you write this character you are constantly talking to people who have more insight about this character than you do. Incorporate their ideas, their experiences. Invite them to shape this character with you so much that they are either credited as a co-writer or consultant. A great example of a white dude intentionally writing a POC character is Sean Baker who wrote and directed Tangerine, a film that follows two black trans women sex workers in Los Angeles. Here is a great interview with him and the film’s star Mya Taylor talking about how he incorporated Mya’s experiences throughout the filmmaking process. The result: incredibly nuanced, three dimensional characters that are neither disrespectful nor rooted in stereotype.

When you’re unintentionally writing POC characters, this is much easier: don’t cast white people by default in stories that aren’t about race. One more time for emphasis: don’t cast white people by default in stories that aren’t about race. This is one of the biggest points I make through Every Single Word. We’re so used to seeing POC play POC only when the story is about race (and also white people playing POC; looking at you Gods of Egypt etc.) and so rarely see POC playing main characters whose race isn’t specified. Also, trust that the actor you cast will infuse nuance into the role. Let’s go back to that example from before: the rich celebrity dentist with a mid-life crisis. Let’s say you cast a Guatemalan woman as the dentist. Trust that she will bring her humanity to the part. And, like an outfit, tailor it to her. Listen to her experiences and figure out if her lines and actions sound right to both her and you. In 2014 when Shonda Rhimes was criticized for writing too many gay scenes, like a boss, she tweeted back “There are no GAY scenes. There are scenes with people in them.” 

even if i don’t like my body today i will take care of it

even if i don’t like myself today i will still be patient and kind with myself