There is always hope

[sophie-frm-mars]

Today (Wednesday 5th Aug 2026) the UK has brought into force a trans segregationist policy stating that single sex spaces must be defined by sex assigned at birth, effectively a trans bathroom ban the same as many of the most right wing states of the US. On top of this, the guidance now in force mandates that trans people be outed non-consensually at their workplace and asked to use the incorrect bathroom by their employers, which will drive higher unemployment in an already disproportionately unemployed and unemployable population.

Today is a deeply horrible and dark day in British democracy as a policy pushed by a select few fascists engaging in a campaign of bullying, sexual harassment, lawfare and institutional capture have pushed through a policy that the vast majority disagree with oriented around harming a tiny minority of the population.

The only solution that will create change is that trans people need to organise. When this guidance was first proposed I wrote the following essay, outlining the specifics of how someone can set up a trans assembly from which harm reduction structures can be formed and clear directions from the trans community can be given to our cis allies, strengthening our political position and creating a pathway back towards being recognised as human beings while protecting the most vulnerable amongst us in the meantime.

I am aware of half a dozen locations where people have started organising towards a trans assembly since I made this, although none of them are in the UK. We desperately need this kind of organising here. We need trans assemblies and we need community formed and focused harm reduction structures.

I have made myself available to people who have started holding regular assemblies in other places to review their constitutions and organising structures and consult with them to get them off the ground, and I may at some point write a followup comparing the results. I am more than happy to help anyone who is putting together a project like this.

Please share this and organise like our lives depend on it.

[useless-irelandfacts]

[headspace-hotel]

I learned in my political science class that all major famines in the 20th century and onward have been caused by oppressive groups or political situations restricting access to food, NOT natural causes like crop failure

[dragons-and-pandas]

This is literally the point that Indian economist Amartya Sen made that won him the Nobel prize in economics. As a child, he survived one of the several Bengal famines that were organised by the British colonisers in India. He developed his theory on famines, which is that they were more about distribution of food rather than production or availability of it

[icaseybaybee]

[remanence-of-love]

[thefairytaler]

My wife pointed out to me the other day that apparently most people were literally only taught how to say Sorry and not how to Apologize or even that they are different things so here.

If all you ever do is step 1, not only did you not apologize, but people will rightfully stop believing you and start getting pissed or hurt.

[eldritchdemigodskywalkers]

An open statement as an Anidala fan of colour

On June 14th/15th, @anidalaweeks announced that their chosen theme for their Anidala Week 2026 event would be "A Love Across Time", with event prompts spanning both the Star Wars and real-life timelines. While the prompts have inspired many fans to create various forms of fan art of their ship, they have also attracted criticism from other community members for several reasons, one of which I would like to address here.

The real-life AU (or as phrased in the announcement post, "modern AU") prompts are as follows, skipping the Free Days: 80s/90s/2000s, Medieval, Victorian, Western, and Futuristic. The Victorian era and Western prompts are the main subjects of this discourse, in part because they largely overlap in time scale: the Victorian era was 1837–1901, whereas the age of the Wild West was 1840s–1910s/20s or 1865–1910s/20s, depending on whether you count the American Civil War and the years leading up to it.

However, more pressingly lies a deeper issue of Westerncentrism (i.e. Eurocentrism and Americentrism): the Victorian era is defined by the reign of Queen Victoria of the British Empire, whereas the concept of the "wild west" is based on American expansionism, both of which are characterized by White imperialism and colonization of non-White nations — especially the forcible displacement, genocide, and oppression of Indigenous peoples.

Although the mods have stated that it was not their intention to exclude non-Western fans and that the community is free to use any other events from those time periods, the fact remains that these time periods as they are currently labelled were defined by Westerners to convey their own history, which is still inherently exclusionary towards non-White historiography, e.g. me using Chinese dynasties to help contextualize timelines as a Hongkonger (e.g. Did you know that the medieval period spanned from before the Suí Dynasty to halfway through the Míng Dynasty in China? That is a lot of time to cover!).

It is hoped that the mods will use more open-ended and universal prompts in the future for inclusivity, e.g. "19th century" in lieu of the two disputed prompts mentioned above. That said, no matter how well-intentioned, there is no time period in history that isn't ugly and hateful in some way (especially the 19th century, re: colonialism; I recommend looking up the First Opium War, the Tàipíng Rebellion, and the Boxer Rebellion for the perspective I am personally examining such prompts from as a Chinese Hongkonger), and in a fandom where several main characters hail from marginalized communities and pertinent topics such as enslavement, genocide, prejudice, and systemic failure are critical plot points in the main storyline, the depiction or discussion of similar events in fan-works in general are unavoidable. The best we can do as a community is to be more aware of socio-historical contexts and seek to portray different settings with appropriate nuance and respect (and creativity if we can make it work!); I have faith that we as a community will be able to learn and grow from this and do better in the future.

Disclaimer: I do not hate anyone involved in the current situation, mods or participants of Anidala Week, and I have nothing against anyone who has been inspired by these prompts (yes, Victorian-era fashions and Western aesthetics are both very pretty, I understand the appeal). I am not saying that anyone who holds subconscious biases is a bad person — we all do. All I wish to do here is remind our community that we should be more mindful of how we view history looking forward.

[anaryllis]

reminders i need to like, tattoo on my brain:

1. if you feel judged and hurt by others, try sleeping

2. if you feel judgmental and resentful of others, try eating (the classics)

3. if you feel uncomfortable, try showering

4. if you feel directionless and afraid, go sit outside for a bit and maybe then you'll calm down. maybe even a walk if youre feelin crazy

5. take it easy, but by god, take it

[anaryllis]

oh and how could i forget. final boss. take your fucking medication

[badgersandbees]

Every single non trans woman who proclaims to be an ally absolutely needs to be posting about how goddamn transmisogynist staff is.

Because when trans women dare to speak up for themselves, Tumblr nukes their blogs.

We need to be fucking loud about this, daily, because Tumblr staff is specifically targeting and deleting trans women who are not breaking ToS and who often have fundraisers up FOR THEIR SURVIVAL.

By deleting these blogs repeatedly, Tumblr staff is saying loud and clear what they hope happens to these girls.

Are y'all okay with that? Because if not we need to be posting about it more because we have seen by now it's incredibly fucking unlikely this sites moderation will delete our blogs for it because we are not trans women

Tumblr staff and CEO Matt Mullenweg want trans women in need to not be able to post their fundraisers, meaning they are okay with these women dying.

[leefi]

[gay-impressionist]

If you are silent about your pain they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it - Zora Neale Hurston

[staticsable]

This is one of those posts where I feel like I'm doing others and myself a disservice by not sharing. I wish someone had shown me this a long time ago.

Maybe I'd be having to do less work to break out of this shell, now.

[longseasons]

[gwydionmisha]

Bonus: If I buy a book I get to keep it! The publisher can't turn up at my house at random and confiscate all the books I bought.

[tepkunset]

I feel like simply calling JK Rowling a transphobe isn't strong enough anymore. Like. This is not your grandpa calling you by your deadname at a restaurant kind of transphobic. This is her wanting to eradicate all trans people (with an extra special hatred towards trans women specifically). This is her trying just that by personally funding transphobic hate groups with millions to push around laws in the UK. It is not hyperbolic to call her a dangerous, genocidal maniac.

It's not about cancelling a problematic writer. It's about literally trying to save lives by denying her as much money and power as possible.

[somanyjacks]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase "self care" doesn't resonate with you, try calling it "system maintenance" and see if that clicks.

[wormsslime]

[somanyjacks]

Reblogging to add amazing tags from @meta-theory

#this both makes things more fun and also is a really good analogy#because there are four types of system maintenance and that makes the term much more exact than the nebulous ''self-care''#and therefore much more helpful to those of us who uhhh struggle with nebulosity#for anyone curious the four types are:#1. corrective (to fix current problems)#2. preventative (to avoid future problems)#3. adaptative (to re-adjust to any changes)#4. perfective (to work towards a better system)#I really like this idea I'm gonna make a checklist

[apocalyptic-cake-deactivated202]

Listen up!

You see a post like this? Where OP might hurt/kill themselves? You hit that button that I circled

Hit that.

Click Suicide or Self-harm Concern

Yes.

Fill in the rest of it, and hit submit. The "content you reported" will fill itself in

Tumblr will follow up and help them.

Warning: this is only for mobile. If anyone knows how to do this for desktop, please add it!

This could SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE.

YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE NOT TO REBLOG THIS.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF IT DOESN'T GO WITH YOUR BLOG'S THEME.

And yes, REBLOG. Liking does no shit at all. This isn't ig.

You reblog, people see it. You don't, people don't see it. This shit's that simple.

This could save someone's life. It's not a joke.

[gyrsaker365]

This isn’t some ‘oh yeah sure it could’.

This could legitimately do so.

Don’t you dare fucking scroll past.

[obscureoldguy]

This is good stuff to know!

[socxsuallycruel-deactivated2022]

please, please, please reblog. reblogging will take one second of your time. meanwhile it could save someone’s entire life.

[giuliafc]

please reblog!

[rpmemes-galore]

gentle reminder to you — yes, you — that your writing is better than you think it is and it’s okay to feel proud of it

[catilinas]

everyone i've talked to about this has been completely unaware so: if you didn't know already, there's going to be a solar eclipse, with totality or coverage of 90% or more in some places, over a lot of europe, on august 12th 2026. in the uk it will start just after 6pm, and the maximum will be at 7:13pm.

here is a map of the path of the eclipse (from timeanddate)

get eclipse glasses if you want to look at it. it is not safe to look at through sunglasses. ok informative post over o7

[jthm-moved]

[hobo-rg]

“spicy pillow” jokes aside, I think @flowerkrone​’s tags deserve a serious reply:

#my old phone looks like this on my shelf lmao #im too scared to touch it to throw it away #idk what trash this even goes into when its at this point

The pillow-shaped object here used to be the phone’s battery. It’s not a battery anymore. Now it’s a balloon full of corrosive, pyrophoric chemicals and hydrogen gas and it’s one puncture away from burning your house down. I am 100% serious. You should be scared to touch it.

But you gotta touch it, because you gotta get it out of your house before the pressure builds up to the point where the balloon pops. This isn’t going to happen soon – there is no need to panic – but it will happen eventually.

And, indeed, it doesn’t go in the ordinary trash. You put this in the ordinary trash and you’re gonna set the garbage truck on fire. Don’t do that to the garbage collectors, their job is hard enough already.

The first thing you need to do is get a fireproof container. The most common household item that qualifies as a fireproof container is a cast-iron cookpot with a cast-iron lid – often sold as a “Dutch oven.” Any other cooking container that’s unreactive, has a very high melting point, and has a lid made of the same materials will also work: enameled or stainless steel, Pyrex with glass lid, etc.

However: Do not use a pot with a PTFE-based non-stick coating. If the battery does explode, the fire will probably be hot enough to degrade a PTFE coating, producing toxic smoke. (Not that you should breathe the smoke from the battery fire either, but PTFE breakdown products are worse.) Do not use a pot made of aluminium or copper. The fire might even get hot enough to melt those.

Whatever container you use, you might have to throw away along with the phone, so don’t use your good Dutch oven for this. Go to a thrift store and buy a cheap one.

Once you have the fireproof container:

Gently pick up the phone and put it in the fireproof container. If possible, gently tape the phone to the bottom of the container to prevent it from bouncing around. Don’t put any padding in there, that’ll just make a fire worse if it does happen. Put the lid on and tape it shut.

Put a label on the container, something like “DEFECTIVE LI-ION BATTERY – FIRE HAZARD”.

It is now reasonably safe to move the container around. However, if the battery does explode, the container is very likely to leak smoke and get hot, so keep it in a well-ventilated area and away from things that will be damaged by heat. Don’t leave it exposed to the weather, either.

You need to find either a hazardous waste disposal site, or an e-waste recycler that will accept defective Li-ion batteries. I can’t help with that because I have no idea where you live.

However, your local fire department, if you have one, will probably be happy to help. Call their non-emergency number. Nothing is on fire yet, so this isn’t an emergency, but things that can easily start a fire are still within the fire department’s responsibilities. Tell them you have a phone with a bulging lithium-ion battery, you put it in a fireproof container, and you want to know how to dispose of it safely.

If the fire department tries to tell you this isn’t dangerous or it’s okay to throw it out in the regular trash (with or without fireproof container), hang up on them and write a cranky letter to your local government representatives, then keep looking for a proper disposal site.

When you do find a a hazardous waste disposal site or an e-waste recycler, call them and make sure they will take defective Li-ion batteries, before showing up. That’s also a good time to ask if they will let you have the fireproof container back.

[lolbatty]

Reblog to save lives.

[bisexualbaker]

[Image: A phone with the insides visible, including a battery that has inflated like a balloon. The photo is captioned, “Pillow :33”]

[flock-of-cassowaries]

Reblogging because I would have had absolutely no idea what to do, either.

[purr-in-ink]