so brits earn less than americans do but their rent & groceries r the same? how the fuck.

ned already said it on twitter and we have this discourse once a year but a lot of the 'haha british' foods you guys make fun of are 100% lower working class meals

realising netflix just billed me fucking £17.99. absolutely not. goodbye.

h and y/n are like cuddled on the sofa having deep convos and they’re like massaging eachother?? super duper fluffy please!!🌷🍰

okay for some reason this is both sad and fluffy, and idk how we got here

warnings: touches on sensitive topics in the current news

May 24th 2022

The BBC News was playing in the background and the clock struck 10 PM.

You and Harry were snuggled down deep on the couch, Harry spooning you from behind. One of his arms was helping keep his head up to peer over your body, whilst his other draped casually around your waist. You were both facing the TV, but neither of you were actually watching it.

Brixton ONO had finished a couple of hours before and you couldn’t be more proud of him and what he’s achieved. The rest of the band had gone out in London to celebrate, along with crew and some members of management, but Harry decided to come home with you instead.

He would always come home to you.

“The news is so sad at the moment.” You pointed out after watching the headlines.

“It’s because the world is so fucked up at the moment. It’s just, we don’t see it daily because we live on our little familiar bubble.”

“I just struggle to live every day freely when those people are suffering in Ukraine and there’s school shootings to innocent children. Then the cost of living crisis in the UK. It’s all just so fucked, H, and it makes me terrified to bring this one into the world.” You took his hand and rubbed it over your still flat belly.

You were only a few weeks into your pregnancy so there’d be no bump for a while. Harry couldn’t wait for it to start showing though. So much so he would make you wear the tightest top he could find and judge whether there was any difference in bump from the day before. You kept reminding him that it was just your extra belly pouch. He loved on it all the same though.

“I would hope that our love for this little one would be enough to keep them safe and healthy.” Harry answered, calming you down by kissing along your neck.

“You’re going to be such a good dad, H.”

“Yeah? And you’ll be an even better mum. In fact, y’already are. Keeping them all safe and warm.” Harry squeezed your belly a little tighter, as is he were giving the baby a hug.

“H, it’s a literally just a blob right now.” You laughed.

“A blob that I love.” He laughed back, kissing your cheek because he couldn’t quite reach your lips.

“Okay, off topic, but that reminds me. Have you seen all that shit with the abortion laws in America?” You felt Harry’s arm tighten around your stomach.

“Yeah. It makes me feel so sick that men in high powers think they can just take away womens rights, as if they’ve ever owned a uterus before.” Harry shook his head.

“And if we’re raped it still doesn’t constitute an excuse for an abortion? I mean what kind of sick and medieval law is that?” You exclaimed, feeling yourself get riled up over this issue.

You turned so you were now laying on your back instead of your front and turned your head to face Harry, who was looking at you with awe. His hand stayed placed on your stomach and your hands went and sat on-top of his.

“I know, baby. It’s fucked, I’m sorry.”

“Harry, it’s not you who should be apologising. I mean of course I, we, have a voice in this, but we shouldn’t be louder than the people who actually have been through these situations. Their stories need to be heard and they are the ones that deserve apologies.”

“You’re right. Do you know anything that we can do?” Harry asked, always wanting to be the first one to join the rally.

“Spread awareness on the media. Sign petitions and call up local offices. Voices need to be heard, so make everything as public as possible.” You explained and Harry nodded his head in agreement.

“I could donate to some women’s rights visitors too.”

“We both can.” You raised your hand to cup his cheek, because you wanted to remind him that it were a team and you’d face all of this together. “Sorry, by the way.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed and he slid his hand underneath your t-shirt so he could softly rub the skin there. “What for?”

“For you having to lay here and listen to me rant about sad issues, when you could be out with your friends celebrating your success.”

Harry chuckled, leaning down to kiss your lips softly. It had been ten minutes too long since you’d last tasted his lips and you couldn’t help but moan at how good he still tasted. He was so perfect and his plump lips fit perfectly between yours.

“You could never be sorry for that, baby, because I would rather be here, with you, than out there, with them. I celebrate my success by spending time with you and getting to be happy. Seeing that smile on your face is success enough.” He kissed your lips again and you let it last a little longer this time.

“You’re the best, ever.” You smiled up at him.

“And I thought that was you?”

Hi can you please hate on the corpse who used to be the queen of England some more? Thank you 😘💅💖

Aww come on. She's dead, she's buried, isn't it time to just be nice and show some respect and forget about old issues and just --

Whew, okay, close one. However, I will say that it was charitable of her to keel over at this exact moment and thus grind the entire economy and country to a halt. You can technically make the argument that this was a good thing, because as soon as business as usual resumed, Poundland Margaret Thatcher (aka new Prime Minister *shudder* Liz Truss) rolled in with her team of top Tory clowns and commenced wrecking, I mean absolutely smoking, the British economy. As a result of her genius efforts to cut taxes for the wealthiest earners and uh, not much else (seriously, WHEN will the "conservatives are better for the economy!!!" myth die in flames? They have one move and it is always terrible), the UK pound now looks like this:

Wow. Huh. That seems bad. This unmitigated economic clown show is going on, need I not remind you, in the grips of an unprecedented cost of living crisis, and the tabloids are already breaking out the Clown Nose of Shame for Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, less than one month into the job, which also seems bad. Every economic publication is likewise "this is a pile of nonsense and it's not gonna do shit." But you know, AT LEAST FREEDOM FROM THE EU TYRANNY OF A STABLE SINGLE MARKET HAS BEEN ACHIEVED!

So what I'm trying to say here is, let's not take our eye off the ball. It is absolutely fun to dunk on the royal family at all times, but while they were spending millions on having people stand in line for five miles to see a coffin in a large room, this utter nightmare of a government, evidently just to make everyone long for Boris Johnson or something, was busy preparing this absolute pile of stinky doo-doo crapsack shit. I mean, I have to pay my UK PhD student loans in sterling, so this helps with the dollar/pound conversion on my end, but also, my god when will the circus end, why are Labour (despite some incremental improvements) still so utterly uninspiring as a whole, and can someone please turn Truss off and then just like. Never turn her on again. Oy.

Hi, hope you're having a good day, here's one of my aunt's puppies and frog in a bucket

(Sorry for that last ask, I think i was tring to express a sympathy on "dealing with this thing sucks", pretty sure I fucked it completely, learned I shouldn't send asks after midnight, sorry)

OHOHOHOHOHO

And nah it's fine <3 Tbh just didn't know how to respond cuz I'm in the same boat. I was basically deported and don't have Aussie citizenship despite trying for years and living there most my life lmao. I know exactly how it goes and it's a chore. "There's no demand for shooters" suck my dick I am singlehandedly saving our natural ecosystems rn 😭

Slight rant under cut

ETA: Also I've met too many people who genuinely talked about wanting to get Australian citizenship because of TF2. Because they think Australia is just Sniper or something. Or the best country ever while ignoring the climate change/racism/housing crisis/inflation/price gouging/cost of living/inhospitability/natural disasters/etc. Australia isn't in a good state right now, most people are barely able to survive, and our middle class is practically non-existent. But people see Sniper TF2 and go "omg Aussie..." and decide they wanna be Australian for some fucking reason while literally knowing zack about the country OUTSIDE of how it's portrayed in media. Nothing of us or our culture, they think they know some slang terms or some shit and that's enough to be considered Australian. And that gets on my fucking nerves cuz I'm still tryna get citizenship cuz it's literally my home and I grew up there.

People also only do this with Sniper btw. You don't see people going "I'm gonna move to GERMANY!!" cuz of Medic, or Russia for Heavy, or Texas for Engie, or Boston, or France, or anything else. It's literally just Sniper. This fandom is fucken weird fetishy about Australia sometimes and on rougher days I genuinely wanna leave it because of it. Any time someone says they want Australian citizenship my first question is why? What do you think Australia has/can give you that your home country can't? Too many bad experiences. This goes extra double for countries on the same development scale as Australia—America, Russia, the UK, South Africa, cuz then it's obvious that it's usually more about what they think Australia is like (because of what they've seen in media) rather than them trying to seek a better life/better opportunities elsewhere.

Anyway the amount of people coming into my DMs/inbox going "how do get Aussie citizenship/immigrate" is too damn high. My brother in gaming if I knew how then I wouldn't be stuck in America. And when I know they're in the TF2 fandom it basically always leaves a bad taste in my mouth cuz my kangaboo detector goes ding. So most those asks get deleted

Sorry for the ramble. This has been on my head a while though. I've met too many people who fetishise Australia/Aussies cuz of shit they've seen in media. Hits me in that "white people seeing exotic nature of locals" bone. Australia is still a "wild land" in some people's eyes so naturally people (usually white) wanna come here and be weird about it. And it usually leads to exploitation (see: arguing with First Nations to give up land rights to built fucking houses)

Rant over I'm burnt out lol. None of this is directed at you I'm just explaining why I deleted the ask. Didn't know how to respond + my kangaboo detector went off. So I played it safe

I’ve been reading a bit of analysis of the autumn statement, and I’m deeply concerned.

The Tories, ideologically, are against government borrowing, and don’t want to increase it. Hunt effectively made up fiscal rules for the autumn statement, so he could say he met them and appease the markets (or try to). In order to meet these fiscal rules, he effectively needs to propose more cuts, and limit public sector pay and other spending.

But there’s a problem. He’s done nothing to bring down inflation, and nothing to bring down interest rates. For most UK household, their biggest cost is housing- high interest rates mean high housing costs. High inflation means the costs of energy, food and other necessities will continue to rise. The average household is expected to have increased costs of £4000 over the next 12 months, according to some estimates.

The Tories will protect pensioners, because that’s their voter base, and the very rich, ideologically.

They’ve also announced increases to national living wage and to benefits, which are in line with, or just below inflation. I genuinely think they’ve done this because the alternative would be mass scale theft, homelessness, starvation or food riots. It’s probably not going to be enough to keep people comfortable, but it’s just enough to put off national unrest.

But, here’s the issue- very roughly working people/households with incomes between 30%-70% aren’t going to get any sort of help/protection. They will have to absorb rising costs, and these are the households facing the £4000 (and remember, that’s just an average) in increased costs. The treasury hopes that people will dig into their savings in order to do this- but not all households in this income bracket have savings of any kind. Many, many people towards the bottom of this income bracket have no savings at all and live pay cheque to pay cheque. And savings are all well and good, but they don’t last forever.

So, what happens when savings run out? Well, people have to borrow. People will extend their mortgage terms, or use credit cards, or take out loans, or use finance to buy a new car when theirs packs up, and so on. And that’s shit- to ask ordinary working people to take on debt, so the government doesn’t have to.

But it gets worse- because some of these people won’t have access to the credit they need. If they rent, their housing costs will likely go up, and their wages won’t, and that will impact their ability to get credit. And at some point, for some of these people, their income will exceed their outgoings.

What the Tories hope is that this will happen slowly. They are, in effect, kicking the can down the road. Hoping they can hold out until the next election, before the shit really hits the fan. That things will somehow get better.

They also hope that they can push the blame onto individuals, if their lives go tits up. They shouldn’t have taken on a mortgage they couldn’t afford. They should have managed their spending better. They shouldn’t have gotten into debt. They should have known the cheap credit would run out... (you know the lines, you remember then from 2008).

It is very easy for governments to borrow money, to spend it, to improve the economy. (This is what Labour should be advocating, by the way). But the Tories won’t do it, because they are against it ideologically. So instead, they will ask ordinary working people to pick up the slack.

Over the next year or so, it’s very likely a lot of traditionally “middle class” professions will strike or take some form of industrial action. The media will say that these people are well paid, that they don’t need pay rises, that they’re just being greedy. But, among other issues, these people are now, effectively, being asked to take on debt so the government doesn’t have to.

Anyway, this country is really, seriously facing an economic crisis- and it’s clear that we need to do something as soon as possible to try and prevent it. OR look for a different way altogether.

TRIGGER WARNING: Transphobic idiots on the internet. Again.

There's a LOT to unpack from ol' Mstoxictea here:

"Not from the pictures I’ve seen" - dafuq is she talking about?! There's literally billions of ways to look like a woman and I think Yasmin Finney is beautiful - not that it actually matters; if YF identifies as a woman then respect that or shut up.

"this is part of the problem with the UK, isn’t it? You all have spent so much time concentrating on getting rights for men in dresses" - quite the opposite, in fact. There are a lot of loud transphobes, with proud figureheads such as JKR, and it's infiltrating our politics, with a tory government fixated on culture war topics such as making the trans community look dangerous when it's the government themselves who are posing a significant risk to the country by failing to address the cost of living crisis and climate change, to name but a few. All fueled by a mainly right-leaning press.

"you fraudsters are only pretending to champion Trans while replacing actual female actresses with crossdressers" - There's no replacement, only representation which is a good thing! YF is, IFAIK, the only trans woman in the cast of this Doctor Who special.

There are very few "out" trans folk in England and Wales where the last census was collected:

The census question on gender identity was a voluntary question asked of those aged 16 years and over. The question asked “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”.

Overall, 45.7 million (94.0% of the population aged 16 years and over) answered the question.

In total, 45.4 million (93.5%) answered “Yes” and 262,000 (0.5%) answered “No”.

The remaining 2.9 million (6.0%) did not answer the question.

There used to be NO representation of trans people in UK media. There must be representation for conversations about trans, and wider LGBTQ+ communities to be normalised, so that these communities can feel safe. Which in today's climate is a challenge. Good on Russell T Davies for providing such a platform!

"You all are pretty fucking sick to keep trying to get rid of women." - this blatantly is not happening, you daft twat MsToxicTea, so STFU.

I know MsToxicTea needn't be taken seriously, but she encapsulates perfectly how some of the insane transphobes in the UK think, and they're a fucking scourge of our society right now. And the septics will demand until they're blue in the face that they aren't bigoted, but this shit shows them for what they are, time and again.

I'll end this with an extra snippet about Rose's storyline from the special. I personally loved this special, and this character, and I hope she has more to do on the upcoming episodes!

Dude seeing as tho you’re an econ student, can you explain why inflation happens?? Like why can’t prices just stay the same?? I genuinely don’t get it. Like wdym we’re gonna have 22% inflation next year?? Like thats insane. Like why are they upping the energy bills?? Why can’t they just stay the same, every other country has a cap on it, why are we raising ours. Im literally so confused rn

no this is so valid of you and i promise you EVERYONE is confused like the annoying thing about economics/politics is that it's the BACKBONE of a society yet normal people dont really know much about it unless they actively try and find out, which is how we create blunders like brexit bc people are just uninformed.

so inflation is a general rise in prices. that's all it is. it's can be a good thing, and it's an example of when the market fixes itself because like anything in economics, it's part of a trade-off. IF INFLATION DIDN'T HAPPEN THE MARKET WOULD FAIL!!! IT DOES NEED TO HAPPEN IT'S JUST WHEN IT HAPPENS TO THE EXTENT IT IS HAPPENING THAT IT GETS VERY BAD!!!! IF IT DIDNT HAPPEN AT ALL WHILE ALL THESE EXTERNAL FACTORS CONTINUED THEN THE ECONOMY WOULD LITERALLY CRASH!!! MONEY WOULD LOSE ALL VALUE!!! AND NOT IN A GOOFY 'HAHA YESSS NO MORE MONEY!' WAY I MEAN IN A INSTANTLY CRIPPLING THE WORKING CLASS AND ALL THOSE THAT CANT STAY AFLOAT WAY!!! THIS IS IMOPORTANT!!!! it all comes back to the very basic model of supply and demand and creating new equilibriums, which to my absolute dismay im gonna have to whip out a diagram for, so here she is Thee Supply And Demand Diagram:

so we can see here that shifts in supply or demand create new equilibriums, aka the point where both lines meet. when supply moves right (increases) and/or demand moves left (decreases) (e.g s1 -> s2 and d1 -> d2), we see prices fall, just like the opposite would see prices rise (aka inflation!). to apply that to what's happening at the moment, general supply chains are just really fucked. russia has cut gas to europe, hence a plumet in supply there and the energy crisis we're now in. ukraine (the 'breadbasket of europe') isn't producing/exporting as much as normal, hence another plumet in supply etc etc. basically every supply chain at the minute is having issues and that immediately causes prices to jump. why is the uk in particular such a shitshow at the moment when these external factors are affecting multiple countries? because this is happening in a post-brexit post-covid-handled-by-the-tory-party post-prime-minister-popularity-contest-during-a-national-crisis economy. it's not looking good bruv. low and behold, we are in a cost of living crisis.

if prices didn't rise to meet these external factors, aka if we stick with the energy example, then we see a plummet in supply with prices staying the same. spending isn't being dissuaded and NO ONE is being pushed out of the market. the reason prices rise is to slow down consumption of the supply and make it last longer, so keeping prices the same, while better for everyone in the short run, would completely fuck us over in the long run bc we'd just run out COMPLETELY and it would be a GLOBAL PROBLEM.

the worst thing about inflation is that it hits poorer people the hardest. you know i said earlier that higher prices push people out of the market to slow the rate of consumption? yeah that's poor people getting pushed out of the market. the people who cant afford energy stop getting it first while richer people can usually ride out crises and recessions. a good thing about the inflation we're facing at the moment is that it's coming from external factors; there hasn't been an actual crash in a part of the economy. take the 2008 recession for example. that was caused bc of the crash of the housing market in america, and as a result it took YEARS for the world to get back on its feet. economic turmoil at the minute though should recover quite swiftly as long as our government gets their shit together (which hopefully if liz truss makes enough of a tit out of herself we'll get a labour government in the next election). in fact inflation is supposed to go back to around 2% (the target rate) in approx two years and is supposed to start falling by next year. still, that's a long time for a normal person on a normal salary to get by with such high costs, and it's not gonna be fun.

as for a price cap, the uk does have one! im pretty sure it doesn't apply to businesses though and only applies to households, which is why particularly there's been a lot of news about pubs closing lately. but like you said, the cap keeps getting higher and higher lately and it's literally because the economy will not survive if we keep selling energy at the current rate; it has to be more expensive bc of everything i just explained. the issue here is that there are things the government can do to ease the financial burden faced by the people and to speed up the economic healing process, but they're not doing that and THAT is where the problem lies.

𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙴 𝙸𝙲𝙾𝙽 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙼𝙸𝚂𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂 !

hello ya’ll it’s me, poloma, finally making this post after being reminded like five times by space over the course of like two months.  i decided to try my hand at doing icon commissions given that i do almost all of my own ( except for the few lazy comms i’ve made ) and i actually enjoy it!  it would be nice to make some extra cash as well because of the cost of living crisis where i live and everything is going up in price, and i mean everything.  so if you’d be interested or want more info then read below the cut!  reblogs are VERY much appreciated! ♡

( steve rogers voice ) so you’ve read below the cut?  well, thank you for even wanting to be nosy!  or if you’re here because you’re genuinely interested then i’ll get right into it.  i want to start by stating that i will not screencap or make icons for any problematic actor / actress.  the same can be said for some fictional characters, but i’ll let you know if i’m uncomfortable capping for any character or actor / actress, but i tend to be very open about stuff.  

please note i only have access to uk netflix, disney plus, crunchyroll, and hulu ( and maybe a few other websites like them ) so if your face claim or character of choice isn’t from a show from any of these platforms then please provide me with a website that i can watch it on.  i can use youtube and am willing to rent films if provided half the payment!

moving on from that let’s get into the pricing.  ngl i understand that people can be put off a lot by prices and it’s not like i’m a graphics blog and can do a shit ton more than just making caps and slightly editing them ( and on a good day making a cute and simple icon border ) so i plan on keeping my prices low and affordable, simply because i enjoy doing this, so it’s not the type of “you pay for my time” situation.  below are my icon prices!

50 base icons     £5

100 base icons   £8

150 base icons     £12

200 base icons    £15

and so on and so forth!  if you’re wanting lighting adjustments then i’ll probably slap on an extra two pounds or so given that requires me going through each cap / icon and editing it individually.  now, moving on from that, i think a few examples of my work is in order?  so i’ll toss some examples of manga icons i’ve made and some caps from some shows i’ve had open recently.  ( there are no examples of any webtoons or manhwa, but i think you can kinda get the idea of things from the examples below! )

example: phanora kristoffel from the manga the witch and the beast.

example: steven grant from marvels moon knight.

example: sabaku no gaara from the manga naruto.

example: musa from the netflix show fate: the winx saga.

in addition to making icons, i’ve decided to also do screencap comms!  purely because every icon maker has their own way of making icons, they cap and crop and edit differently and i’ve noticed how some people prefer their icons up close and personal or with certain angles, which i totally get.  ngl, i’m the same.  if you’re not too sure what i mean i’ll provide a little example below.

so here we have the absolute love of my life, may calamawy as layla el faouly.  in this single cap alone you could get three, maybe four or five icons if you messed around with the angles and sizing.  and, of course, i took the liberty of making another example for you all because i am never too sure if what i say makes any sense.

as we see here it’s the same exact cap but just positioned differently, which is easy to do if you have an icon border with all the little nooks and crannies.  so the option to commission caps instead of icons is there, an alternative if you will, if you’re not too fond of the way i make my own screencaps or the angles i use!

please note this option works best with realistic face claims as manga caps, webtoon caps, and manhwa caps can be tricky to work with.  if you’d still prefer this option with a non-realistic face claim i’d have to flicker through the manga / webtoon / manhwa to see if i can work with the artwork to create big caps that work well enough without ruining the quality.

but if you’d prefer icons but like having multiple icons of the same cap ( like above ) then that is also an option, but i will charge for each icon instead of each cap.  so if i make three icons from a single cap alone i’m charging you for the three icons instead of the cap ( does this even make any sense ) unless you’d like to pay for extra.  honestly, anything goes.  i’m open to discussing it if nothing i’ve written makes sense.  so if you’re interested or have any questions then shoot me a dm and i’ll get back to you!

i’m an american who’s wanted to go to this one british university for a long while now both because i really like the school and also because universities in canada and europe are much much cheaper even for international students than any american university, and oof man :( i’ve had mixed feelings about living in the uk for a while now, and it’s gotten worse in light of recent events, but also like! it’s not like i’d have to stay there after graduation, and i do think it’d be interesting to get to live somewhere that’s such a change of pace from the shitty southern suburbs i’ve grown up in. but at the same time i have this feeling of guilt over wanting to move to the uk despite current events and everything. you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want!!!! but as a bri’ish person, do you maybe have any words of advice?

Oooo ok ok this is cool and interesting, I'll try and give you some vague advice with the best of my capabilities but at the end of the day I'm just some guy yanno.

So first off I would say that I feel taking an opportunity to travel is always very cool, especially if it's for education purposes because you don't need to have the biggest long term goals there you can sort of just dip your toes into it. And as someone in uni I do currently have a handful of American friends on my course who have been very excited over just how drastically cheeper tuition fees and shit are over here.

I personally don't think you should need to feel guilty about wanting to come over here, I guess just make sure you're aware of like current events that are going on and weigh them up accordingly. Like politics seems to be wilding everywhere to some degree but it's about what sort of wilding you're signing up to. Like rn our main things are the 1) cost of living crisis, so a lot of bills and general energy costs are hella going up, alongside some other general prices like food shops and such, 2) the queen dying and ur new king, as you're not planning on coming right this second than that probably won't cause much of an issue for you but like yeah, this crazy ass monarchy is still kicking about and generally existing, and 3) Police crime sentencing and courts bill, which is basically a bill restricting certain areas of protest and giving the police more powers in restricting them. You can probably do your own deeper research into all those and other general stuff that I've missed out.

I hear a lot of news from the Guardian which isn't perfect but also isn't aggressively right wing (avoid the sun, and the daily mail yikes) also if you have instagram there's an account called uk fact check politics which posts a lot of breaking news and always sites their sources!! so you can have browses of that or some of the sites they are sourcing (warning though they do post quite a lot, if you plan on following, so you could also just browse a bit)

Overall main points:

Travelling is good and fun, adds to some experience in life, and is good to see how people may live differently outside of your bubble

Travelling for school makes a lot of sense, considering how expensive american tuition fees are, especially if you already like a school and specific course

Also means you don't need to be committed to live there long time but you will have to for a couple of years

I personally don't think you need to feel a guilt about wanting to come over here

Just research and be aware of the sort of political climate and situations that are going on here so you can weigh them up in your decision making and if you do decide to come here you won't just be ignorant to everything yanno

you know what, i’m making those tags i put a whole post.

I get that on tumblr the death of the queen is a meme, and honestly, fuck it i encourage you to continue making the jokes, I legit agree with the  sentiment behind a fair amount of them. But n regards to why I won’t be reblogging most of them, i think i need to relate my legitimate fear over what this is going to mean for living in the UK

When I say what i’m about to say, I want to be clear, i am not a royalist, and i fully understand and agree with the anti-royalist sentiments about their legacy of colonialism, racism, classism, and sexual abuse.

But please understand as a Brit living through an already nightmarish political and economic crisis, I am scared for what is likely about to happen.

Like never mind the bizarre nationalist weeping, what her death is actually going to mean on a logistical level for the state of the country over the next few months is going to seriously fuck with and potentially endanger actual Britons lives.

to recap, we JUST got a new PM LITERALLY yesterday, we're in a historic cost of living crisis, and now the monarch is dead

shit is possibly about to get VERY messy here. Regardless of your own opinions of her, and regardless of how true this may be, her existence gave Britain the perception of stability on a world stage. And we've just lost that

We are going to have internal conflict over this. There will likely be an upswing in nationalism and nationalist violence rooted in racist and classist tensions. There will be serious and possibly aggressive movements toward abolishing the monarchy, which regardless of the good it might do long term could be, will likely cause mass-civil unrest. Her death is also likely to tank the GBP on the financial markets even more making the already historic and deadly cost of living crisis even worse, and in terms of international politics, well there is a not insignificant portion of the British public who believes her continued existence was pretty much the only reason we were still considered a player on the global stage. That’s now gone.

 Regardless of if you liked her, and tbh i'm fairly indifferent, her death is going to cause a fucking nightmare. Shit’s about to get very bad

So I understand you're all having a laugh right now, but as a Brit currently living through and already unstable political and economic situation, I'm very very scared

(ventilation life hack anon) i hear you! no sweat.

i have another option but itll cost a pretty penny.

you can get some small solar panels (about 15 inches [side note: this is how you know im american]) about 4 of them will work out. slap them in your window and they can hook up to an emergency battery. those big fancy ones that have outlets on em. depending on the energy n shit of your heater, the panels, and the battery, it would be about 4-12 hours charge, 12 hours run for a bunch of devices. hook your heater up to that. leave the panels in your window (even in countries with not alot of sunlight you should be able to get some energy) to get the battery charged up. then in the morning, slap that bad boy to your heater (i live in a small house thats only 2 room so my heater is very close to my bed. fire hazard but if thats what kills me thats a win) and put your clothes over it. should only take half an hour and not alot of energy from your battery but boom. warm clothes and a slightly warm room.

update: doing some searching to figure out the expenses. found out that good quality solar panels are like 15-20 euros for more than 4 of them??? fuck??? you might need wiring knowledge though fuck.

update update: you dont need wiring knowledge.

update update update: the battery pack in question is 100-200 euros for a good one. but because of wattage itll be a long charge time. i mean. its a one time purchase and you get warmth and a cheaper electric bill so... win?

update update update update: oh god update is going to lose its meaning to me. anywho the panels work on heavy overcast days so thats a win too.

god bless I love how you've looked into this like adore the stream of consciousness at the end but do not fear! this is not something available to us as, you know, money etc, but we do have sweaters and blankets. we could afford to put the heat on for a few hours a day and do plan to do so once the temperature reaches single figures in the house (in Celsius, don't worry...) but right now we're trying to hold out. it's money saving for the colder months (it doesn't get truly baltic until January/February here) rather than not having any money at all, you know? also while solar panels can work on overcast days, they would not be so efficient during polar night, which is what we experience for about three months (December to mid-February or so) -- the light never gets above twilight, and the sun does not properly rise. (we are very far north.) keeping a houses humidity level stable is actually far more efficient for retaining warmth, so a humidifier might be a better and cheaper investment if anyone out there is looking to raise the temperature by a few degrees!

not to get too much like a world politics class on here but for those of you who don't know, the UK is currently going through a cost of living crisis thanks to a lot of factors, namely Brexit, the war in Ukraine, and dreadful mismanagement by the incompetent and disorganised government. this crisis was predicted and hinted at a long time ago, but the government did sweet fuck all about it. now, before our winter has even begun, people are struggling to heat their homes -- some people have seen their energy bill go up from double digits per month (no more than £99) up to several thousand a month. the energy cap -- the absolute upper amount that can be charged per unit of fuel or electricity) has risen dramatically, been capped briefly, and then risen again. the country is running out of electricity and may have to do something called "load shedding" over the winter, where the electricity is shut off in a controlled blackout to save supplies. the last I checked, this would be for four hours in the evening, leaving people with no electricity in the very dark evenings right over dinner time, and right at the time where parents with school-aged children are trying to get them ready for the next day/kids are doing their homework. a lot of people require electricity to power the boiler to heat their homes and water, too, thus leaving people without heating or hot water in the dead of winter. this is predicted for January and February, but already people are unable to heat their homes, have to choose between eating and being warm, or have to skip meals so their kids can eat. (the cost of everything has gone up, even daily essentials, and the country is in a massive recession.) kids are showing up to school unable to concentrate because of hunger, or too tired and cold to work properly. the government has rolled out some relief, but it totals about £400 for the whole October-February period -- not even enough for one month of comfortable heating for some people. it is absolutely insane.

so yeah, don't worry about us. we can manage it if we're careful and don't mind a bit of discomfort for a few minutes as we change or shower, or for a few hours as the room warms up from the night. in the depth of winter we'll be able able keep the house cool but comfortable. but there are millions of others who are going to freeze and starve this winter, or who are going to have to go into debt because they have babies who cannot get this cold, or who are elderly and will have to walk to coffee shops to nurse a single drink for hours just for the warmth of the store, or ride buses all day just to get out of the cold. worry about these people -- all of them are victims of our absolutely inhumane government, who could have prepared for this and done something to ease it, but chose not to.

Ik this prolly isnt the place for this but vent mode activated. 

The state of the UK at the moment is downright shameful. We’re being repeatedly fucked by a fuel and energy crisis and’ve just got a new pm who is a puppet of BP. And what can we do? Wait ‘til 2024 for another general election, where we toss a coin over who's gonna do a worse job of cleaning up everything the govt.’s done so far. 

While we’re waiting, I’ll just pick up extra shifts so I can pay for the bus to where I work to attend the extra shifts, yeah? If the buses will even run because of the strikes, which I can't say I blame the drivers for, God knows I would if I could. And I’m certainly not the only one who can barely afford to put the heating on this winter. 

The memes about the Queen’s death don't necessarily bother me, I didn’t know her personally and am by no means a royalist. But let's face it. Her death is going to be all over the news for the next few months. Memorial after memorial, without even getting a day off, I might add. Not that I, or any of my family, could afford to lose out on hours anyway. Interview after interview of so-called ‘royal family experts’ who are going to be musing about what sort of king will Charles III be and how he and Camila were star-crossed lovers (which I heard yesterday on my local station.)  In the meantime, coverage of the cost-of-living crisis? Coverage of the anti-lgbtq+ stuff Truss is pushing through? Coverage of the decisions over the brexit fall out? Coverage about the growing anti-abortion movement in parliament? Coverage about the fuck-tonne of waste our govt. is allowing to be put in the sea? Nah, will just focus on the queen ay. (Those are just token examples there are many fucking more)

The death of the Queen is sad, as is any death really, but it came at just the right time for the current govt to exploit the shit out of the developing media circus.

This has all come from someone who considers them self English/British proudly. Or did. Yeah, its prolly past tense now. 

Sorry for the rant, but good God, its simply vile the state of where I live at the moment. 

I wish British people would stop overreacting already, the Queen dying doesn't mean people are going to instantly lose money and become poor enough to not afford bills!

uh,,, yes it does. millions of pounds in taxes are being spent on inbred white scumbags instead of shit that actually provides for working people. the london stock exchange will be closed for at least a day if not longer which costs an insurmountable amount of money, not to mention the shit that gets shut down because of her

also, do you have any idea how bad this is for a broken government with a new PM? the sort of bullshit the tories are gonna pull (that’s the conservative party for you americans and boy is it ugly) is INSANE.

also, i’m not even from the UK i’m just living here now. i am however, commonwealth, and the british monarch is still my head of state.

bills are projected to skyrocket, inflation is a cunt rn, not to mention the dollar isn’t looking so good either. also, may i remind you that britain is actually 4 countries (or 3.5 but this isn’t about star trek rn) and 3 (2.5) of them rely on the financial support of a strong UK. not exactly willingly, but in order to survive. and people are BARELY surviving, nevermind with the croaker. also SINCE YALL ARE FREAKS ABOUT DIANA AND ROMANTICIZE HER DEATH, NEED I REMIND YOU THAT CHARLES IS KING NOW AND HE IS SO MUCH WORSE???

people are already getting fucked over here, it’s really bad, especially for the lgbtq community. the queen dying is the perfect excuse for a shitty government to cut funding and make its nation miserable and blame it on mourning or ukraine or whatever bullshit they come up with because monarchists suck

also, i’m like 99.9% sure you’re american and like in my defence y’all never shut the fuck up when like, some random joe shmo in your government system has leaked sexting dms let alone a huge fucking government crisis. if we have to put up with all your bidens and trumps and roe v wades and LA influencers and basically every activist post put on the internet which assumes everyone is american and therefore HAS to care about your issues and know the ins and outs of everything that goes down in your hellscape, then let british people express concerns about their livelihood?

so basically, you can just filter out the tags and move along while being a miserable sop. no need to go on anon and complain to a canadian 🤡

TDLR The cost of living crisis in the UK is royally fucking me in the ass and I can't afford to live anymore so 🤷‍♀️

The past 4 weeks have been hell and I don't mean to be dramatic but the true volume of shitness didn't hit me until this morning and I just woke up feeling low, like I don't want to exist anymore low.

And then I check my emails...our lovely energy provider decided to wait for a month after the price cap increase to tell us our bill is going up (we'd been lulled into a false sense of security because we hadn't heard anything).

Our monthly direct debit will be increasing from £49 to £325. There's 2 of us plus visiting child living in a 2 bedroom flat.

I didn't ever think I'd be in a position where I'm earning the highest salary I've earned in my working life and yet I'm at a point where the compromise isn't between buying food or using electric because even if I buy the food I can't afford to turn my electric oven on to cook it.

We were in a fortunate position that meant we could pay our year's rent up front so this problem is only set to get worse come September when we start paying rent monthly again.

I fight PTSD and depression everyday because I want to work (although the hell of the past 4 weeks means I'm technically not working) . It helps me stay motivated and distracted. But at this point working a decent paying job isn't enough to be able to live so what can you do 🙃

I don't know why I'm posting this I just needed to rant somewhere and why not go on a good old fashioned tumblr rant.