Waverly

honestly life in general could use more sitting on benches, i feel. bench me. take me off the field. v tired.

started playing silksong last night. i am bad at games like this. but that's okay! i am noodling around, exploring the world, fucking up repeatedly and slowly improving. if only life also worked like this (sit on a bench, wake up right back there after you screw up fatally)

good morning timothy you're looking great

what do you even say anymore I assume that you have no shortage of people telling you how fucked we are. My reluctance to join the chorus is, shamefully, a matter of self-preservation....

a friend reminded me that I used to "write newsletter" so I have written newsletter. imagine buttondown.com/waverlysm/ar...

my american husband and I once spent a fruitful evening wandering around england on google maps and marvelling/cackling at the more esoteric place names

like, I can't talk about my experience of US immigration without also talking about how privileged it was. I truly can't imagine how dehumanising it must be to go through this process while in any way racialised.

and, of course, I'm white and British, so I had it relatively easy. my consulate works fairly reliably. nobody assumed I was an overstay risk when I visited my husband during our wait. the officer who ultimately let me into the country was courteous and welcoming.

it was 15 months for us! and my green card is still conditional, meaning it will need to be re-verified and renewed in 2026. for more money, of course.

Americans, I love you, but you do not (as a majority) understand how your immigration system works. it has been punitive and cruel for a long time.

do you think they'd let you join in with the throwing if you asked

we do. (our other option was England, and we're both trans, so we figured California would be the safer bet. for what it's worth, I still think that's the case, relatively speaking.)

if we were going through our immigration process now, I would absolutely do the same thing. I'm really sorry you're going through this.

still haunted by the memory of standing in line at SFO border control with my big envelope of getting-over-the-border documentation in my hand, once i'd finally gotten my visa. i've literally never been so anxious.

I was allowed back and forth across the border, generally speaking, but I carried a literal binder of paperwork proving my ties to the place where I was living at the time. signed leases, work contracts (and I was freelancing, so I had to specifically ask for those).

actively deranging to hear the way the great majority of this country talks about immigration

US citizens so rarely have cause to come into contact with their own immigration system – with any immigration system, frankly! – and they assume it's so much more laissez-faire than it actually is. I had to get certification from multiple countries that I had never done a crime.

and when i tell people about the mandatory medical exam, the way people from non-ESTA countries often can't get visas to visit their US partners while they wait, the fact that my green card still needs to be renewed in 2026 (for more money, naturally!), they are shocked. every time.

one last thought which is that the revolution fucks. the oppressor lives in beige air-conditioned basements and cannot touch except with violent intent (or a distancing handshake). but the revolution is probably fucking Right Now.

- i also think i appreciated how relatively gentle the film was with the people who gave up information. no absolution, but certainly an acknowledgement that the enemy had more cards and a greater willingness to cause collateral damage that their targets couldn't always bear. idk.

- chase infiniti (the actress playing willa) deserves an absolutely tremendous career and i hope she gets one
- nice to be able to laugh at, rather than worry about, a white supremacist gentlemen's club with objectively absurd trappings

in the cold clear light of day here are my thoughts:

- it felt fitting that this was an ensemble piece rather than a Hero's Journey situation
- i lowkey wanted more of the nuns
- sean penn walks like he has a gun up his ass throughout, which i have to imagine that spiritually speaking he does

Current level of normality in the discourse:

( ) NORMAL: the football player is footballing wrong
( ) ALERT: some company changed their logo
( ) SEVERE: game has the wrong difficulty
(X) HAZARDOUS: an easily panicked horse has been left in charge of social moderation
( ) WEBCOMIC COMMENTS SECTION

saw ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER and I think I’m still taking it in. but I did deeply enjoy it

If you see this post a random photo (or meme) from your photo gallery without explaining it

writing a 2025 version of "We Didn't Start the Fire" that is just four minutes of indistinguishable frustrated yelling that ends with an evacuation alert for an actual wildfire

my cat just put her little ass on my foot and lay down there, for instance. what do you all have to say about That

Wow. I‘m not sure which part of this is weirder: that they think Starmer’s rep might be worse than theirs, or that they might be right.

the wank this week has been unusually esoteric imo. please everyone try to become at least one degree less removed from material circumstances by next weekend

i don’t know what the fuck any of you are talking about

a zoom call featuring Susan Stryker, in landscape rather than portrait

Susan Stryker is sideways and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way

A woodcut style ink drawing of a Tardigrade: "Just because I can survive harsh conditions doesn't mean I should have to." (If anyone knows the artist, I'd love to make (a version) of this available for sale and can only find tumblr replies via tineye.)