Himba

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Why do I do this?

I’ve gotten this question a lot, usually followed by:

Why not read books you actually enjoy?

Go write something yourself instead of relentlessly criticizing.

You’re just jealous.

You’re mean.

So, just so we get this out of the way:

I do! I talk about those on my regular social media. Tumblr is for bitching. Here are some recent favorites: LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS by Ryka Aoki, THE DEEP by Nick Cutter, and THE UNSPOKEN NAME by AK Larkwood. THE FINAL STRIFE by Saara El-Arifi (forthcoming in June) deals with a lot of the same themes HOSAB tries to tackle, with far more nuance and skill.

I have! I get that you have to take my word for it because I use a pseudonym here, but I’ll say it anyway: I’m a fucking excellent writer. Even the crap I wrote as a clueless 19-year-old was better than this.

Of her money, yes. Next question.

This woman treats people like me with utter disdain if not outright erasure, and makes bank off it. I reserve the right to be fucking mean. I’d say this all to her face and sleep soundly the same night.

I struggled with this one. It’s not just a bad book, it’s a tediously dull book in which NOTHING HAPPENS until the last 100 out of 800 pages. It was so dull, in fact, that I worried I wouldn’t have enough material to make my recap not also horribly dull, and when it wasn’t boring it was infuriating.

The worst thing about this book is its smug, self-congratulatory “all lives matter” rhetoric, from the perspective of a main cast that’s overwhelmingly powerful and privileged. Like, imagine if the Hunger Games trilogy was told from the POV of some rich Capitol rebel ally as opposed to the kids being thrown into arenas to die. Imagine said rich benefactor decided the District 13 rebels were too violent, and tried to take over the reins/kill their leaders. I don’t think I realized until reading this book, just how critical it was that KATNISS takes out President Coin. The ability to critique methods of resistance, and the agency to do something about said methods, belongs firmly in the hands of the oppressed.

Not gonna lie, it’s been very hard for me to come up with funny things to say about HOSAB in the wake of all that nonsense. But here’s my best effort.

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.

May I add this one out of sheer delight?

shut up you uneducated fuck

also before you attack skye with the same claim about twt

https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/account-restoration

SAY HER NAME:

DOMINIQUE FELLS.

SAY HER NAME:

This is from this morning literally it’s like this every day:

PayPal

Venmo

Listen. ACOTAR is a mess anyway, but as an Irish person, I have a lot of strong feelings about the way Hybern is evil. It's obvious from the maps that Hybern and Prythian are just a rip-off of the British Isles, but the fact that Prythian/the United Kingdom is the good guys and Hybern/Ireland is evil really rubs me the wrong way.

I'm assuming ignorance on her part, but if she's going to blatantly copy actual countries and their cultures, she should've done her homework.

The UK colonised Ireland. We were under British rule for 800 years. During the great famine, when all of our potato crops began dying due to blight (we had a big reliance of potatoes), Britain still insisted on exporting our other crops our of the country and it crippled us. We had a population of 8 mil before the famine, and it's only just halfway recovered. The last census was in 2017 and we had just under 5 mil then.

I'm not totally sure where I'm going with this but I want to explain that Ireland has always been a very pacifistic country. Yes, we did have a civil war, but that was pretty much Britain's fault. Yes, we tried to smuggle weapons in from Germany in 1916 (which failed, by the way) but that was because we were trying to stage an uprising. We weren't involved in the world wars. We were slaughtered and abused (see Cromwellian plantations if you don't believe me, or the black and tans) and mistreated for centuries, and then Mess turns around with her whole "Hybern is evil and the only reason they're evil is because I said so" (haven't read them in a while, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a proper reason, right?) and my GOD it frustrates me that her rip off UK is painted as the victims of her ripoff Ireland when actual history is reversed.