#long post //

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Simone de Rochefort shared the email she sent to Jim Bankoff, the CEO of Vox Media who sold Polygon, on bluesky. The text of the email is transcribed below:

"Hi Jim,

I'm writing to let you know how incredibly disappointed I am about the decision to sell Polygon to Valnet. Even though I'm one of the fortunate few to still be employed, I'm still furious and heartbroken.

I was in Europe when the sale went public. A few days later, a reader recognized me at a cafe in Paris. He couldn't believe what had happened, and asked me how it was possible, in the United States, that a workforce like ours could just be disposed of. He also added, completely unprompted, that American workers should "choose violence." I just thought I'd mention that! It was cool to be recognized halfway around the world for my work. The readers have always appreciated it, even if you don't. But I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

At Polygon, we wrote stories and made videos that were unique in entertainment media - they were weird and well-researched and funny. We also got awards for our reporting (including myself and my now-laid-off colleague Clayton Ashley - we were nominated for an ASME and we won a New York Videogame Critics Circle award).

We attracted brand sponsorships, some of which my team was in the middle of working on when my colleagues were laid off. My understanding is that Vox will be doing make-good sponsorships for the businesses that had contracted with Polygon. I wonder if they will seek out Vox Media again, once that process is finished.

My colleagues who were laid off spent years building connections and trust with sources in our industry. On the video team, subjects gave us hours of their time and resources for interviews. People trusted us to tell their stories. You can't do good journalism without that trust, and that's been at minimum bruised by this sale and the dismantling of the team.

Our readers and viewers are wonderful. I applied to work at Polygon because I read a comment chain on the site that I expected to be full of sexism and vitriol. Instead I found thoughtful people having a civil and intelligent discussion. What a rarity on the internet!

Did you know that Polygon's YouTube comments have always been overwhelmingly positive? My games journalist colleagues at other sites marveled at the fact that at Polygon, I never got hate mail. Was never harassed. That I could scroll freely through the comments of any video that I or my colleagues made and see people appreciating our work. That is so, so rare.

I worked at Vox Media for 9 years. The week before the sale, as I was preparing to go on vacation, I stayed up till 5 AM so that I could finish my next video. No one asked me to do that! That was frankly stupid, considering how little you and the company valued our work. This doesn't make me look very good or very smart, but I'm including it anyway.

The truth is I like working and the feeling of productivity, and I liked what I was making. I felt like that made it worth it.

It didn't! I suppose what I am saying is that Polygon's employees did everything possible to make the site a success. We built a profitable, respected publication.

You, and Vox Media's leadership, didn't know what to do with it. You failed to make a good thing work for you. That's quite sad, and quite an indictment on Vox Media as a whole.

I used to have a lot of faith in the company's longevity. I don't anymore, because of your poor decision-making, and your failure to listen to the people who were telling you what Polygon needed.

I had always said that Vox Media is an amazing employer. That out of all the media companies, it was the best. I encouraged people who are bright and hard-working and talented to apply for work there. I felt so lucky to have my job. I don't think you know yet how many bridges you've burned with people like me who would've jumped at the chance to work for you, and let themselves be exploited along the way.

A couple years ago, a former employee told me that digital media would never love me back, and that I should leave Vox. They said I wouldn't understand how much the company takes from its employees until I tried working somewhere else.

Well, now I work for Valnet! Thank you for the push out the door!

Meanwhile, if you couldn't make a profitable website like Polygon work, then what hope is there for my colleagues at other Vox outlets?

How many unprofitable ventures will be propped up with profits from the Polygon sale, and for how long? Before you and the folks with a head for business (or so I'm told!) have to hit the ledgers again and find something to sell, or someone to let go. Or will the company just enjoy a tax write-off for 2025 and then … what?

Polygon was special, and it was valuable, and it was profitable, and you sold it, at a time when the economy was at a low point - and when Polygon, against all odds, was still making money.

This does not make sense to me. Please feel free to respond and convince me.

Sincerely, Simone de Rochefort"

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Toot Toot Beep Beep

Fast cars. Dicey overtakes. Pit stop drama. Tumblr is in F1 fever, and the fanart is abundant and tremendous. Please enjoy these recent F1 fanart offerings 🏎️ 💨

@thefairyfanartsblog:

@bigbandithewada:

@boredrxm:

@eenuaj:

@m0mj34ns:

@luftss:

@minkei:

@pppuri:

@heraldssrest:

@zen-llama:

@illusbyaf:

@etheireimagined:

@disasteraleks:

@alythh:

@papayafox:

@unknownaster:

@foudreika:

@lone-yy:

[teaboot]

mr boot, can we see more things you did not get suspended for?

(i promise this is only partially because i want to see more of doodleboot with his mouth open)

I may have to draw these later BUT I can write a list now!

1. In grade 3 we had a program where older students would supervise younger students while teachers ate lunch. Younger students could talk and walk around the classroom as long as they weren’t disruptive. One day we had an older student yelling at all of us to “Sit down and Shut Up”, and that made me so mad I told him, “You’re standing and yelling at us to sit and be quiet, you’re not following your own rules”. This turned into an argument where he threatened to send me to the principal’s office, and I said that if he did I’d tell them why. I did end up getting reported for “not listening to the student monitor” and a phone home was made but from what I recall I was never given a lecture and didn’t get in trouble. That kid was also never supervisor again.

2. On my first day of elementary school an older kid took a dime I found and threw it to the back of the school bus. He turned out to be a bully every time I rode the bus after that and eventually started spitting at me from across the aisle. The bus driver never did anything about it so one day I spat at him back, and we both got temporarily suspended from the bus- me for about a day, him for a week, except I guess someone knew it was an ongoing issue that he was causing so he also got suspended from school for a week. I didn’t, though.

3. Again in elementary school I got into a disagreement with a kid- I don’t remember what about- and he punched me in the stomach. I kicked him back and we both got sent to the school’s guidance counsellor, who I remember nothing about except he had grey hair and glasses and his office smelled like tuna salad. Other kid said he hadn’t done anything and I’d just kicked him for no reason. I told the whole story and said I knew kicking him was wrong but I’d been angry that he’d punched me over a disagreement. There was a call home but I was not suspended.

4. A kid in chess club told me that he was going to win our round, not because he was more experienced and I was only learning, but because boy’s brains are naturally better at strategy than girls are. This was my first introduction to sexism and I thought it was so stupid that I threw all my pawns full-force at his head. These were some hefty solid plastic pieces, too. I was then kicked out of the library, I think. I later discussed this with another guy friend and we agreed that boys WERE stronger than girls, but that was only because girls were smarter than boys and it had to balance out somehow. (We were about six at the time, for context.)

5. About half way through my first day of grade 8 social studies I realized the assignments, reading, and syllabus were completely identical to those from grade 7 social studies. When I pointed this out to the teacher, he said we could discuss it after class. He would not answer when I asked why it was exactly the same, and when I asked if half of us present were expected to do all the same work from the grade before a second time he said “Yes, you can do it differently if you want but you still have to do it” and said to take it as an opportunity to be more artistic if we wanted. I said this was ridiculous and asked if we would be learning ANYTHING new or just repeating the grade. He then went on a long rant about how he was in the middle of a divorce and lost his second job and “didn’t appreciate me undermining his authority in front of the other students”. My mom then got a phone call about my disruptive behaviour. When I told her my side of the story, she called back and asked to talk to the teacher to see what was going on and discuss my concerns about the syllables, to which the person receiving the call told her, “Mr. So-and-so has a degree in psychology and has teenage daughters, he knows how to handle difficult personalities”. Mom and I then agreed that Mr. Guy was a fragile, condescending idiot with poor compartmentalization skills and that I should just take the class as-is for an easy A. Which I did.

6. Choir was an optional extracurricular except for my class which for some reason were required to participate for reasons I am still unclear on. I hated choir and our songs were all stupid froofy saccharine bullshit about joy and rainbows and friendship and crap. I decided I was going to attend and would stand and do whatever I was told and mouth along if I had to but I wasn’t going to sing. The choir director was an asshole I had other classes with and already knew I didn’t want to be around, but in her defense she had a choir to direct and I wasn’t contributing. She’d frequently tell me to “sing louder” so she could hear me and then nod in satisfaction when I stood slightly straighter and opened my mouth wider while humming a little. I was eventually told if I wasn’t going to put the effort in then I would be asked to leave, to which I pointed out that I would GLADLY get out of her hair but half the students present were from my class and had been specifically ordered to participate, and had been told it was mandatory. This was then proven with a show of hands. I don’t know why this happened or why she didn’t know but she didn’t really get after me after that.

7. In grade four our gym class had a unit on “hip-hop dance” which consisted of a boom box playing what sounded like kidz bop covers of 80’s-90’s rap while a 40 year old white woman in a high ponytail and electric purple tights bounced around and showed us how to “pop and lock” and “do the electric slide” and “moonwalk”. I was immediately struck by an overwhelming sense of indignity that I could only articulate at the time as, “this is undignified”. I was a total goody two-shoes at the time and WANTED to be good and participate but was so weirdly disgusted and mortified at what was happening around me that after a few half-hearted movements I totally locked up in a straight-backed stand with a clenched jaw. All I felt I could do was wait for it to be over. Today I think I would describe the exact feeling as “paralytic cringe”. It was incredible. From what I recall I would not move or say anything to anyone and when being told to dance along I would just firmly say “no”. I remember having to be physically picked up and carried to the principal’s office where they called my mom but I have no idea what the aftermath was, only that being suspended was a big deal and that didn’t happen.

8. I really REALLY liked my grade 4 teacher and would regularly give her a little plasticine snail to sit on her desk. Only one, remade of the same clay over and over. The next morning every other day or so I would find that someone had smashed it flat. One day I unfolded a paper clip so that there was a spike pointed up and hid it inside the snail. I wish I could tell you what happened but I don’t know. The snail disappeared and I couldn’t re-make it anymore.

There are so many more now that I’m thinking about it but damn I got in trouble more than I thought I did huh

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[santapau]

New Secret Knots comic: "Cryptid".

[hydrattan]

I was feeling agitated and artblocked yesterday so I decided to give my brain a rest by watching TV and then the next thing I knew these were in front of me

[valdotpng]

an accomplice turned victim his apology, long overdue

[mercurio-shadowz]

Shadow is Rouge's n1 fan (and hater, currently)

+ Sonic is here literally just to be a little prick

This took so long @_@

[climbingthefloors]

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[im-da-bronx]

This reminds me of 3 things

1) an art installation in Salt Lake City, “Point of View”, (often called “You Are Here”) by Aaron T. Stephan

2) a creepy book I read in middle school, No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko

3) the funny messages on the US highway signs that have now been banned

I'm finished with art for the semester soooo here's what I've been workin on! All assets are my own. I used a DSLR camera along with Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint

Feel free to send asks about the unaltered photos/photo locations, cause some of the original signs were pretty interesting tbh

[gongyussy]

good thing from jp twitter this week is queen of old man yaoi michiru sonoo discovering the term old man yaoi

update: somehow it got impossibly more wholesome

quick translation: おかえり: welcome home あ 終わった 終わった: ahhh, it's over! it's done! コーヒー? お茶?: coffee? tea? コ~ヒ~ ありがと: coffee, thank you~ ネクタイレア★★ ネクタイ取るレア★★★★: seeing him with a tie on, rarity level ★★, seeing him take a tie off, rarity level ★★★★ にあうな~: it suits him~

also please do follow: AraigumaSha: sensei's twitter account marureviere: maru, who does such valuable work highlighting bl manga for an international audience

[thankstothe]

folk hero really

[ydotome]

Holidays with Pokémon - 【公式】PokéMinutos

[selkiesparrow]

Zoozve, my beloved

[nondivisable]

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.