This month is the one year anniversary of posting my poem “Condolences” to TikTok and Instagram, where it amassed millions of likes and tens of thousands of comments.
Since, people have used the poem for adaptive art pieces, short plays, books, and class work. For your piece of art to be transformed into another…it’s difficult to describe.
After several rejections from poetry publications a decade ago, I decided to post my work online instead. The responses were overwhelming. I realized that an official publication doesn’t make you a poet. Writing poetry does, and bonus points if you manage to resonate with just one other soul who needed to hear what you needed to say.
I was utterly taken aback by the response to this piece. People have asked me many times to explain it, but from the response it was clear that the meaning can be explicated with a little time.
Some people who didn’t understand it until it was explained were angry when it came together. It wasn’t written for them.
I’m only grateful that it reached the people who needed it.
I feel that the imagery is part of the piece, but I know not everyone can or cares to listen to a video. Here is the poem:
———————
They buried a girl in my hometown today.
“A young woman, gone too soon, in the prime of her life,” they all said.
My friends and I all knew her. We grew up together.
We were in all the same classes and hobbies and we made up games together at recess.
But none of us went to her funeral. We weren’t invited, because the people planning it didn’t think we’d understand. They said it wasn’t our loss.
So we got together for drinks. We laughed all morning and played card games all day.
At 4 o’clock, we heard the church bells. We saw that long, sad procession of cars stretch like a creek through town, up the cemetery hill.
We heard strange rumors that night, that the casket was empty. That they put it hollow in the ground.
So we went to the plot first thing in the morning. They buried her empty box next to her dad, down the row from an estranged aunt she never really knew all that well.
There wouldn’t be a stone for months, but the little placard had my name on it. But not the one I go by these days.
“How strange,” we all said. “What a waste of good crying.”
All of this mourning for me, and I was down the street the whole time, laughing and drinking.
But some people will never understand. They’d rather plan a funeral than learn a new name.
My friend said she felt sorry for them, in some small way.
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We've all seen the Adrian designs and the #rocky mate bad as hell statement, both of which I adore. I love that we as a fandom have agreed that Adrian is an absolute catch, but, and stay with me for this, what if they weren't?
We've decided that Adrian is a big, pretty blue/green rock who Rocky is obsessed with, and Grace is intimidated by, but in the same way that we sometimes find hot people intimidating. The complex color, the way light reflects off of the geode structure, and the patterns you can see underneath. Absolutely beautiful, but would Eridians have the same society beauty conventions? They don't perceive color or light, and those inner patterns, depending on the geode, are often viewed as imperfections by collectors. Would Eridians also see those inner imperfections and view them as not attractive?
Much like we are supposed to look at Ryan freaking Gosling as Grace and interpret him as somewhat of a loser within the world of the movie, within the Eridian society, Adrian is considered a catch for many reasons, their size for one, but being attractive is not one of them. The uneven mineral deposits and the way their surfaces are angled affect the way sound bounces of them. It's not necessarily unpleasant, just not overly desirable. Adrian is just as typical as any other Eridian, but they are compared to impossible beauty standards that so few actually meet.
Of course, Rocky thinks Adrian is hot as hell, but he is in the minority, claims everyone else is stupid, so when Rocky brings home this leaky space blob, who seems transfixed by Adrian, Adrian thinks Grace is just being polite towards them for Rocky's sake, but the more time they spend around him, the more genuine they realize he is.
This alien can perceive things that none of their species can, and the blob says everything about them from their color, to the light reflections, to how their inner patterns seem to dance when they move, none of which Adrian can actually comprehend, makes them stunning to look at. Mesmerizing even. Yes, Rocky thinks Adrian is beautiful, but Adrian acknowledges a certain amount of bias there, but this foreign being, whose standards of what is attractive are just as incomprehensible as he is, says they are beautiful in ways that no one but he will ever be able to perceive. Adrian can't help but do whatever the Eridian equivalent of blushing is.
Anyone else thinking about how Important names are to Eridian culture, considering how Rocky addressed himself and Adrian, and what that would mean once Grace got to Erid.
(ignore statements of time i refuse to do the conversions)
Imagine, after decades of your world becoming colder and colder, you are saved. A single Eridian, the only one of twenty three to survive, arrives in an alien ship, accompanied by a creature you can barely conceive.
Everything about the alien is so loud, hinges formed from tissue thumping and stretching in constant movement, even while unconscious. Completely organic, reliant of oxygen and hydrogen. Instead of a protective carapace, it regrows its damaged tissues. It has senses you do not, and technology so unlike your own, both able to utilise a force you have never heard of. The same force that killed almost your entire mission team. Highly adaptable, able to teach itself how to fly its ship in under a week, able to become fluent in the engineer's dialect in less than four years.
And if Erid's best engineer is correct (and there's no reason it wouldn't be), this creature not only managed to breed a predator of the warmth-taker to survive in various atmospheres, including Threeworld's, but also turned around to provide aid when it discovered that the predator could escape xenonite.
And you think: Surely, this creature which protects itself without a carapace, which sleeps so lightly and knows so much and learns so quickly, which saved two planets at the cost of ever returning to its thrum, surely, a creature so extraordinary must have a name to match
And you think: Perhaps it is strength, Mountain-Base or Lonsdaleite-Carapace. Perhaps it is intellect, Diamond-Claw or Lockpick-Mind. Perhaps it is courage, Song-Through-Silence or Path-Carver
And you think: None of these names hold the true weight of what this creature is to them. How do you describe something like that, which aids without expectation of anything in return, which risks its own life for the sake of a species it cannot touch, which performs miracles simply because it was asked.
And then you learn: Your saviour's name is Kindness
so grace is probably alarming to most eridians at first because he's a lanky wet alien with too few limbs, yes--but what if he ends up being terrifying in a sort of divine way instead of a repulsive one?
like. a creature that perceives the intangible? a creature that walks with thin permeable membranes bared to the air, whose blood contains elixir that can destroy pathogens without heat? a creature that is impossibly fragile yet resilient? a creature that breathes potently flammable gas to survive? a creature that is loud all over and speaks in a strange and frightening monotone, who thought it would die for you? who gave up its home in the heavens for you without meeting you first, whose first words to your people were probably something along the lines of We saved your star. It's gonna be okay. Don't be afraid.
grace is such an interesting bundle of contradictions! he breathes an incredibly flammable gas because he lives at such a cold temperature the gas can't ignite except he burns it very slowly inside the delicate gauzy cage of his body. his meat is basically a delicate water-and-protein foam because he lives in a very tiny fraction of normal atmospheric pressure. his planet has almost no air, no atmosphere. they're so gauzy, so frail, living underneath a whisker-fine sky, that to get to space in a couple seconds by exploding towards it. they can't build a space elevator because all their materials are just various attempts to do anything whatsoever with shitty frozen metals and various hydrocarbon meshes. their spaceship is a tiny refrigerator, the most expensive thing they ever built, and controled by a impossibly complex calculation engine they knitted out of silicates. it contains all human knowledge, if it doesn't catch on fire.
they knew that space was there because they can perceive it directly. it's literally right overhead all the time for their entire evolution. they know the faces of thousands, millions of stars, as soon as they tip their faces up. eridani is a name from two thousand years ago. all their stars have been named and known and watched and sung about for longer than any individual human civilization. they have always known the eridian star was there.
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No joke you guys NEED to get more comfortable blocking people. No more insulting people in public over different blorbo opinions no more making 2k long posts on how whatever ship you don't like shouldn't exist we've grown past that shit. Consistent posts about shit that make you uncomfortable? Block. Rancid blorbo opinions? Block. Is mildly annoying in your replies? Block. Pisses you off for reasons so petty you could never admit it publicly? Block. YOUR mental health will improve from not being upset 24/7, THEIR mental health will not be at risk of you lashing out because you happened to catch their posts on a bad day, and EVERYONE ELSE will benefit from not seeing the most embarrassing arguments known to man on their dash. "Oooh but they didn't deserve it-" dude you're presumably running a personal blog as a hobby not a public service. Who fucking cares.
Just so you know, Tumblr friends, if you ever tag me for a writing/art/screenshot/whatever game and I don't play along, I do still appreciate the tag and would still love to be tagged again in the future if you think of me. I just don't always have something to give for a specific tag prompt, or I'm too busy at the moment.
No one is doing it like Ilya Rozanov. He’s in a gladiator costume. He sent the rookies home from his party because he’s depressed. His boyfriend drove two hours with a butt plug in because Ilya looks hot in that gladiator costume and Hayden Pike called him a prude and that bothers him. Shane said I’m a freak and I need my boyfriend to know that, but Ilya can’t stop crying thinking about Shane. Ilya is looking down at his plugged up boyfriend giving him a bj under the gladiator skirt and he’s got tears in his eyes. He’s alarmed by the tears in his eyes and responds by fucking Shane nearly upside down on the couch like an inversion table. He’s doing fine. Maybe he should think about therapy.
Sometimes people say that Ilya’s characterization changes dramatically from HR to TLG but I think it’s more like the “expectation / reality” frame from 50 Days of Summer. We spend most of HR in Shane’s head perceiving Ilya as the coolest hottest man alive and the minute we hop into Ilya’s head it’s like oh. Oh no this man is sticking a fork into his toaster
unfortunately i dont think its queerbaiting if the creator is just so terminally heterosexual that they never remotely considered the same gender relationship their show is centered around could be read as romantic. it is deeply painful however.
By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.
There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.
That's queerbaiting.
Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.
The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.
Doing it on accident sucks, but it isn't a tactic of capitalism intentionally intended to suppress queer representation while making money from queer fans.
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Out at 11 to keep the water trough from slushing up. This time I took Pity on Rosalie and put her coat on. K bought it in the fall, and I don't think she has ever worn it before. She was not thrilled.
She said, "I - can just stay on the porch? Right?"
As a matter of fact, no, Rosalie, you cannot.
I can't even.
She did eventually get the hang of moving in it, but continued jumping into the air and shaking vigorously, trying to get rid of it.
Meanwhile, Hero and the gang are just hanging out by the haybale. Enduring stoically.
The part where I had to climb the damned apple tree, in my winter layers and boots, to force the idiot chickens to go in their coop does not bear talking about. There was hostile language on both sides.
😅 sometimes, one chooses to get err... a less modern breed of chicken. Like, say, Icelandics. And chooses to let broodies hatch out chicks because chicken is tasty, and hey, I got these birds in part because of their reliable brooding and mothering instincts.
Unfortunately this means that come mid to late summer, the cockerels are ready to strike out on their own ie. Stop sleeping with those silly grownups (alternate version as reported by the adult chickens: parents kick those absolute idiot teenagers out of the coop perches due to a serious case of Excessive Hormones and Unruly Behaviour) (a pattern that does seem to match with their jungle fowl ancestors)
Then, when one goes out to lock up the coop at night, one is faced with the tree nearest the coop being filled - up to a height of about 30' - with chickens who are convinced this is the Best and Only place to sleep. (To be clear there is significantly more indoor perch space than actually needed, they could and do all comfortably fit inside)
Choices at this point are:
a) feed the raccoons (not ideal on many levels including but not limited to that's *my* future dinner dangit!)
b) shake the tree (at best resulting in confused and irritated chickens landing on one's head, also not ideal)
c) get out the leaf blower because I have yet to meet a chicken that enjoys its butt fluff being suddenly blown backwards
So C it is. Which thankfully after a few days does result in being able to run the chickens out of the tree just by turning it on for a few seconds. They aren't stupid birds. But those first few days I do have to stand around under the tree (or on the coop roof) causally leafblowing my chickens.
Zuckerberg’s increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator."
Lukashenka's secret police – still called the KGB – routinely terrorize and kidnap pro-democracy activists, and all forms of protest are banned. It was against the backdrop of this unrelenting oppression that the activists launched a series of whimsical "flash mobs" that challenged the Lukashenka regime's willingness to crack down on even the most innocuous behavior.
One of these flash mobs was an ice cream social: activists converged on a public square to eat ice cream cones. Lukashenka's thugs beat them and dragged them away:
The protestors thought that by daring Lukashenka to arrest people for eating ice cream, they could create a win-win situation: either Lukashenka would be revealed as the kind of asshole who thinks it should be illegal to eat ice cream, or he'd be revealed as the kind of weakling who couldn't keep a lid on dissent.
Lukashenka took the bait. And took it. And took it. In the years that followed, protesters would be arrested for smiling, clapping, and just standing silently:
The world learned that Lukashenka was a buffoon, and Belarusians affirmed their view that this buffoon would not hesitate to mete out the most vicious punishments for the most innocuous actions:
https://sci-hub.st/10.1080/25739638.2021.1928880
Speaking of thin-skinned, paranoid, wildly corrupt buffoons who will stop at nothing to silence their enemies, how about that Mark Zuckerberg, huh? Sure, all the headlines these days are about Zuck's intention to transform Facebook into a sports betting site:
But in the UK, Zuckerberg's war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook's international relations team:
Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it's also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook's executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg.
These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people's organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don't have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.
It's a terrible company, with awful products, run by the worst people. Wynn-Williams' conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration).
Together, these three clauses – routinely used by Meta to silence would-be whistleblowers – meant that after Wynn-Williams's book was published, Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge – to order her to never promote or even speak about her book.
The arbitrator awarded Meta $50,000 for each criticism that Wynn-Williams levied, quickly coming to a total of over $11,000,000. This vastly exceeds the assets and lifetime earning potential of Wynn-Williams and her husband (a reporter with the Financial Times). If this bill ever truly comes due, they will be wiped out.
Which raises an interesting question: what else can they do to her? Once they've secured civil damages that exceeds her net worth several times over, why shouldn't she just flout her agreement? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," and all that.
Nevertheless, Wynn-Williams has scrupulously hewed to the arbitrator's rules, steadfastly remaining silent about her book, its contents, and her experiences at Facebook/Meta. When she and I appeared onstage together in London for the launch for my book Enshittification last year, she fell silent and assumed a blank expression any time the subject of Meta came up, and she didn't sign or sell books afterward:
When she won the British Book Award, she did not speak to accept it, and the cover of her book was blurred out on the overhead screen (she gave an acceptance speech on behalf of her co-winner, the late Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault):
Nevertheless, when she was booked to speak – about a subject other than her book – at the Hay Festival on a stage with Tim Wu and Carole Cadwalladr, Meta sent a legal threat to the festival and Wynn-Williams, claiming that if by speaking about anything in public, she would violate the arbitrator's order. Accordingly, Wynn-Williams maintained total silence and a blank facial expression for an hour on stage, saying not one word, while Wu and Cadwalladr carried on a discussion. Careless People was withdrawn from the festival bookshop on the days she appeared there:
Nevertheless, Meta has informed Wynn-Williams that her silent, motionless appearance on a stage constitutes a further breach of her "agreement" and that they are going to seek even more damages from her. This act of anti-ice cream thuggery has pushed Wynn-Williams over the edge and now she's sued to invalidate her contract:
Her lawyers have posted their documents related to the suit, including a 285-page declaration by Wynn-Williams explaining the great lengths she's gone to in order to comply with Meta's demands, and the company's absolute intransigence and arbitrary menace:
Why would Meta be so intent on destroying this one high-profile whistleblower? Surely they've heard of the Streisand Effect. There is no better way to ensure that Wynn-Williams' book (already a NYT #1 bestseller) continues to attract readers than to continue to escalate these threats.
I think they're perfectly aware that they are convincing more people to read Careless People (you should read it, it's genuinely excellent):
But I think they've decided that this is a price worth paying, because:
a) They've done even worse things since Wynn-Williams parted ways with the company; and
b) They're laying off thousands of workers because their giant bet on AI has been a flop, leaving them with a massive cash crunch; and
c) By destroying Sarah Wynn-Williams, they can terrorize all those thousands of bitter ex-employees into silence about the even graver sins the company has committed.
Lukashenka knew that arresting children for eating ice cream would make him a laughingstock abroad. Zuckerberg knows that threatening Wynn-Williams for standing in wooden silence on a stage makes him look like history's most guillotineable billionaire. But both Lukashenka and Zuckerberg are willing to be thought a thin-skinned bully, so long as that means the people they oppress the most are too terrified to ever challenge their authority.
I read this book, and my main takeaway was that Sarah-Wynn Williams spent years trying to change Facebook from within, and ultimately learned the hard lesson that it is virtually impossible to change a corrupt organization from within, and that toxic culture is far more likely to change you than you are to change it, at which point she got out, and wrote a book about it.
I don't think any of the people criticizing her and calling her a monster have more moral fortitude than she did. They would fail just as badly as she did if they tried to do what she tried to do, but of course they would never try in the first place, because they would rather pass judgement on the internet from the comfort of their toilet seats.
genuinely I do love katara and sokka as a representation of how Indigenous people can be written in a fantasy setting and it was nice to have something like that in a childhood that was spent consuming a lot of media set in fantastical worlds. however I think if those are the only fictional Indigenous characters you can name, especially like as an adult, you should really make an effort to also engage with stories that portray real Indigenous people and cultures in the real world
actually I’m going to add to this and say something that I know will be very controversial on tumblr but. if the only fictional Indigenous characters you as an adult can name in general are from solely children’s media, you should really make an effort to engage with a broader range of stories that portray real Indigenous people and cultures in the real world. sorry. I know this is a touchy subject. This isn’t meant as an indictment of adults who engage with children’s media overall. I just think those shouldn’t be, like, the only Indigenous characters you’re exposed to. respectfully. you’re going to be missing out on a lot of aspects of our stories, frankly. no matter how deep you think that story tailored to a child audience is. it very well may be. it was still written with children in mind first and foremost. please attempt to broaden your horizons.
and if I’m being really honest? once you’ve finished listing fictional Indigenous characters you’ve heard of? my challenge to you, white tumblr user, is to name at least one work of non-fiction (book, essay, documentary, etc) created by an actual Indigenous person. you’re allowed to use search engines you just have to name one. and then you have to engage with that work, if you haven’t already.
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I'm all out of elegant well-phrased thoughts. Anyone else think Ilya "gonna butter him up so he stays" Rozanov sucked Shane off on the countertop when Shane got to his house in episode four? Like, he didn't pull that move of lifting Shane onto the countertop just to kiss right? It was Step 1A of his grand plan, titled: "suck him off while in a half-squat." Anyone else think he made Shane come like three times so that by the time he asked Shane to stay the night Shane was like 90% sex hormone, 5% Hockey on TV later, 4% hungry guy, and 1% thinking brain? Forget the tuna melts. Ilya was like "I have to exhaust him physically and deposit him on the couch with hockey on TV in comfy oversized sweats and his favorite Canadian soda." Ilya knew he couldn't put on a shirt this day. The shirtlessness was the primary anchor of The Plan. All this was planned. And the son of a bitch almost pulled it off.
everyone needs to hear about the situation in india right now. the youth of this nation are going through hell and back to protect the foundations that our country was built on in the first place, while the adults who are supposed to actually be in charge try to silence our voices.
NEET, which is an exam taken by millions of students per year and is the ONLY gateway for medical admissions across the country, had its papers leaked. so many took their lives because this exam meant everything for their future. and NTA, the agency who conducts this exam, was not held accountable.
there was national backlash. cockroach janta party (initially a satirical political party formed by abhijeet dipke in retaliation to the remarks of the chief justice of india calling the youth "cockroaches" and "parasites of society") started protests at jantar mantar, demanding the resignation of the union education minister, dharmendra pradhan. the movement also asked for ten million inr (~100,000 usd) in compensation for the families of students who died by suicide and wanted NTA be held accountable.
sonam wangchuk, a climate activist and education reformer, also went on a hunger strike at jantar mantar to protest against this corruption in india's higher education system. his fast began on june 28, demanding the resignation of the union education minister. his fast lasted for 20 days until delhi police FORCIBLY removed him and admitted him to safdarjung hospital on july 18.
because of this, cockroach janta party announced "chalo sansad," a march to the parliament beginning on june 20th, 9:00 am ist. but the police seems to be responding with water cannons, mobile jammers, and baton charge. all of this, because of a peaceful protest led by people no older than 30.
and yet there has been absolutely no indian media coverage about a movement that spans the entirety of this nation. so, please, if you see this, keep talking about us. we will not let those old bastards stoop any lower than they've already had. we will not let them ruin our country any further. we will not be silenced
Please look it up. Students have been beaten bloody. They’re using electrified batons. They’re using batons with nails hammered in. They’re dragging people off and locking them up for no reason. People are being beaten, assaulted, and even molested by the police.
The government is doing everything it can except for actually having an honest dialogue with the protestors.
It’s important to note that despite all the police brutality, despite how the government has had extra forces airlifted to Delhi to help quash the protest, this has deterred no one.
Not only is the protest in Delhi going strong, the government closed down every metro station in Central Delhi in an effort to stop them and it still hasn’t.
There’s protests in most major cities in India in solidarity. Palakkad, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, and probably more besides. There has been a protest in the UK as well in solidarity.
People who aren’t at the protest are donating so much food that the organisers have had to ask them to stop doing so because there’s more than enough. In lieu of that people are donating money for medicine, lawyers, cleanup, and umbrellas.
Most crucially, hopes aren’t broken. Spirits aren’t broken. People with bruises and broken bones are still showing up. People are showing up cosplaying as freedom fighters and super heroes and a dinosaur. People are doxxing goons who show up trying to incite violence. People are making reels. People in Mumbai literally opened a moving police detainment van to allow arrested students to escape.
*all links lead to Instagram posts or reels showing the same. Almost every major Indian news network has been bought and either ignores the protests or depicts them unfairly. All honest news comes from people on the ground and smaller independent news outlets.
