#uk people be like

[bienmoreau]

“What you hold onto is less important than the act of holding on itself. It’s so easy to get lost in ourselves and this world. Sometimes you need to find your way back one tiny miracle at a time.” - The Sunshine Court

WISHING THE HAPPIEST OF BOOK BIRTHDAYS TO @korakos! YOU DID IT AND ITS BLOODY BRILLIANT!

Please please excuse the disgusting things my iPad camera has done to this photo. This is the first time in years I’ve done something like this fully traditional and it has stretched so many rusty parts of my brain but I’m SO GLAD I got this done in time for release day! This book is WONDERFUL and I’m so happy it’s now out in the world!

[haridraws]

Excuse the format (I made this for instagram since that's what the publisher wants, rip) but this is basically a shorter, easy-to-read version of the history section at the back of my new book.

(Part 2 || The book)

---

Disclaimer: I'm extremely not an expert, and this is only scratching the very surface of complex topics that are hard to simplify. I mostly made this to EXTREMELY rec these books and podcasts, and would urge you to go check them out if you're not familiar!!

This stuff might seem obvious to some of you, but let me tell you, I do NOT think it's widely known in the general UK population.

Imo a lot of the general (especially white) public think that the Windrush generation - Caribbean migrants brought in to help rebuild postwar Britain in the 50s - were the first Black communities in the UK. And yet there's deliberately not much focus on why the Caribbean has links with northern europe. HMMMM

(Britain loves, for example, to celebrate the abolition of slavery without mentioning WHAT CAME BEFORE IT - Britain being the biggest trader of enslaved people, with more than 1 million people enslaved in the British Caribbean. They literally just did it overseas.)

Telling the truth about history or British imperialism gets this massive manufactured backlash at the moment. There are so many ideas prevalent in UK politics - anti-Black, anti-refugee, anti-trans - based on going ‘back’ to some imaginary version of the past. Those are enabled by a long tradition of carving parts out of the historical record, and being selective about whose histories get told and preserved. Even though the book I was making is a fun rom-com, by the time I finished researching, I decided to make an illustrated history section at the back too (this is a mini version). My hope is that readers who haven’t come across these histories might get an introduction to them - and some pointers of what they could read next to get a clearer view of our past.

[airplanetunez]

Wishing a Glorious 25th of May specifically to people like me who live in area where lilac does NOT bloom in May. Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a floral-based holiday that aligns with my climate zone!

[satans-knitwear]

Don't let the neighbours see 🤫

Treat me ~ Tip Me ~ More of me

[vordemtodgefeit]

‘nobody wants a general election, obviously’, says second PM in a row that wasn’t voted in by the general public, wasn’t even voted in by members of the party let alone the people he claims to represent, and whose party is predicted to lose said general election

[stil-lindigo]

Recently, dual citizenship Palestinians managed to safely arrive back in Australia, and while it is a relief to have them out of the reaches of Israel’s bombs, it’s an undeniable tragedy that they have been unjustly ejected from their homes by an active genocide. While celebrating their arrival, remember that the Albanese government STILL won’t demand a ceasefire and obscures any attempt to uncover details about the military aid we’re currently sending Israel, all the while supplying the US and Israel with surveillance intelligence of Gaza sourced from a base in Alice Springs.

Penny Wong, our minister of foreign affairs, remains committed to doing absolutely nothing besides clutching her pearls and pleading for a “humanitarian pause”. We should all be calling her offices (not emailing) and inundating her with demands for a ceasefire.

You can use this template to call Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles today.

The Greens party (the only party to have enough of a spine to call for a ceasefire and to walk out of Parliament in disgust for our cooperation in Israel’s war crimes) has also put together a petition to stop Labour exports of weapons into Israel. You can sign it here.

If you live in Sydney - a boat carrying armaments meant for Israel is going to be docking there in a few days.

Join trade unionists to protest the boat and delay it for as long as possible.

Australians - I know as a population that a lot of us are checked out of politics. You can’t afford to do that now. 1% of all Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s assault on Palestine - 1 in 100 are dead, and half of those are children. Australia is complicit in genocide and it is up to you to never give our politicians a moment of peace until Palestine is freed.

[buzz-cow-man]

everyday i hate england more and more

[ryegarden]

it's election day I can be a little political as a treat. if you still purchase or publicly consume or create harry potter media or content, donate to a UK based trans person and sit with your morals for a bit. Both major political parties ran a campaign stoking a culture war against trans people because of Rowlings ideology and funding. Every time you line her pockets - and that includes by consuming and creating fan content publicly, thus proliferating the enjoyment of hp (because even if you don't spend money on it, you are making it acceptable for people who do spend) - you contribute directly, personally, to British trans kids dying early. I don't care if it's important to you - I wore a ravenclaw scarf to school well into my teens, and then I found out Rowling was a terf (and all the antisemitic shit in the books) and every piece of harry potter merchandise got stuffed in a box at the back of my wardrobe. It turns out, when the author of your favourite book is best buddies with the MP of your constituency and they talk about trans people like you're dirt on the bottom of their shoes, it sours the experience a little.

Read a better book. Do better by british trans folks

[numbuh424]

Create a Death Note x Taskmaster crossover.

Your time starts now.

[positivelyadhd]

gentle reminder that I'd you're struggling with your mental health in any capacity, if you feel like you need help or want to talk to someone please do.

it does not matter if "other people have it worse" or you've been worse. If you feel like you need help, then you do.

You deserve to have someone that listens to that and takes you seriously. Your struggles do not change when compared to those of others. Someone being "worse" does not mean yours aren't valid.

Please remember that you never need to get worse to ask for help. If you need support, you deserve it, everyone does.

[elodieunderglass]

So for some more details:

- I am fairly time-poor with a huge amount of commitments: Grownup Job Senior Promotion, three small kids on summer holidays/starting school, writing a novel fanfic for sick friend, peak growing/harvest season at allotment, etc. so im only offering “what I can actually deliver” at this time

- swan comic is a new idea, people like those don’t they? Not sure of how fundraising mechanism would work here but maybe taking prompts?

- not sure how essay would work but it’s probably my best/most appealing skill?

- material items in exchange for a minimum fixed amount. So offline I’m most known for material works. I’m not a BAD printmaker / craftworker and for this I would be looking at designing a sort of limited print run of greeting card style original hand printed prints. I know you guys aren’t familiar with this work from me, so this would involve a bit of trust that An Art from me would be worth at least £5 lmao. However it’s kind of nice to get something real in the mail right??

- super worried about fandom auction so this would be mostly a register of interest that I’d take to more experienced people and use as leverage to start an auction; I’m not in a great place to provide much actual legwork here. I also have huge guilt from like 2000-something where someone paid A HUNDRED AND LIKE 20 DOLLARS to charity for earthquake survivors and I DID NOT FINISH THE FIC AND I HAD to write to them, weepingly, apologising forever about it, and they were so graceful, they forgave me and wrote off my fandom auction contribution, but I had never watched the tv show they requested and was in the process of romancing dr glass and it all went SO wrong, this MIGHT heal my scars of shame from fandom auctions generally OR might make them worse. It itvery hard to write fic actually it’s my worst skill pls don’t pick this

Anyway

I will dance like a monkey and get sick kids out of Gaza. What would you like to see most?

[mikkeneko]

If we're all pretty much on board by now with "media consumption is not activism," are we ready to move on yet to the necessary corollary of "failure to consume media is not failure of activism?"

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

I’ve been highly confused as to why Michael “deeply openly thirsting on Twitter about David Tennant for half a decade” Sheen is half-in half-out the closet but apparently Wales is absurdly homophobic lmao what the fuck how is a country the size of New Jersey that much of a hater bruh we out number the shit out of you

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

i hate rishi sunak as much as the next person but i do feel bad for him having to read from the gospels at the coronation........ they keep saying that "all faiths and beliefs" are included but our Hindu prime minister still has to do a reading from the Christian bible huh

[jessaerys]

sun visits the moon at spk headquarters and gets so so so sleepy

[the-ace-with-spades]

You know people assume (and like it's their right to do so, its headcanons, etc etc don't come with pitchforks at me) that Bradley's youth queer experience would be very positive given Mav and the implied icemav of it all

But I think instead of making him more open about his sexuality in adulthood (or just unapologetic), it'd give the opposite result

This is to do with that, although he'd see happy queer people (Mav and Ice) behind closed doors, his childhood, mainly in the 80s and 90s, as well as Mav's and Ice's attitudes toward being open about their relationship, would teach him how cruel the world can be and the typical 'better safe than sorry' attitude being queer outside of typical queer spaces brings to many

He could see Mav and Ice love each other very very much, maybe to the point he'd even base his idea of love on them, but he'd also see how much maneuvering would keeping their relationship from the public cost. Sure, there are friends who supported them (flyboys, Carole, etc), but there were also countless people who would destroy their careers and lives if they ever found out (also if Mav ever adopted/fostered him, just suspicions of him being queer could put Bradley back in the system, the way things worked back in the 90s and also given how many fostering agency, even government employed, are christian-lead...)

In the instances someone would come close to discovering it, not only he'd see how distressing it can be but also how much being discovered would cost - whether this is personal safety, job security, respect, etc. And even if the worst didn't come to it, he'd still be left with the foil remarks and hate 'bullying'

As long as DADT was in place, I think he'd be equally if not more careful in comparison to what he had seen while with Mav and/or Ice

If anything I think Jake would have more of the naivety being openly and unashamedly queer takes (whether this is because he grew up in an environment with no visible queer people ergo never saw actual acts of hate toward them, or because he thinks he left the most hateful environment and nothing can be worse than it OR maybe because he is 100% or nothing kind of guy, no matter to what he commits)