(no subject)

[thisbluespirit]

Sorry about all the political posts yesterday, when I usually avoid such things in fannish spaces, but yesterday was exceptional. It's not every day you wake up to find out that not only have we voted to leave the EU, but that the PM has resigned, the Opposition are calling for a vote of no confidence in their leader, Scotland and Ireland are making plans to leave the UK and the economy has crashed. It's a shock. I feel like a small alien walking around in my north east town full of flags hanging out of houses, and I'm British. (I think. It's a bit hard to tell suddenly.) (I was trying to remind myself it might be for Euro 2016, but they weren't there last time, and then extra Union Jacks appeared. Oh, the irony.)

The point of this post being really, I'm sorry! Fannishness and cheer will now resume (I hope) while my country takes a few weeks/months/years to figure out what comes next (politics is mostly v slow) and hopefully we'll all work to make things get better. And I have a hurt/comfort bingo table to work on while the country falls apart, which seems vaguely appropriate...

But for the moment: I just don't know or recognise my country any more. I don't know what it is or will be. I didn't know I could feel like that. It's unhelpful, but it's true. What may come may be good, but for today I am very sad - for me and for everybody else who didn't want this, especially those who didn't even get a say and who have now been made to feel afraid and unwanted here. <<♥>>

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*bigsquishyPershugs*

[thisbluespirit]

*hugs back tightly*

How is your recovery going? (From a few days ahead of you, I can say that I'm quite a lot better these last couple of days. :-D)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I've been feeling well enough the last couple of days to actually write!

Also I left the house this morning and took some exercise - walked to the local Tesco Express store. I was pleased I had the energy for that, because 4 days ago, I didn't have the energy to reach the garden gate (a distance of about 6 metres, max!)

[thisbluespirit]

Hurrah! ♥

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

It's a relief since I am dragging myself back to Oxford on Monday via the train, and to work on Tuesday - totally dreading the latter.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize, honey...think the whole world is shocked and sad. Think we need a Doctor, but I dunno what he'd make of the mess, frankly.

*hugs you hard*

I hope it gets better from here, honey. H/C bingo sounds awesome right about now (d'ya know where I can get a card?!?!)

*extra cuddles*

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! And, aha, the Doctor would be bound to bring aliens - would that help?

And you can get a bingo card at hc_bingo if you want one. It's a nice, laid back challenge - only 1 square to fill at need and all fanworks and original fic welcome. Have fun!

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I do like to think it would. :D

I may have to sign up there. Sounds like a good idea. And maybe I can get some of my all sorts done as well. That would be lovely!

*HUGS*

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Welcome to the club. :-( The US has the same kind of half-and-half split, I wonder if it's worldwide. :P

*all the huggles*

[thisbluespirit]

The US has its problems but it didn't try to break itself into bits yesterday. But, yeah. *hugs back*

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

Wait'll November. ;P *hugs* I really don't mean to sound like I'm making light, I'm sorry. I just... your last paragraph. "I didn't know I could feel like that." It's been so, so, so goddamn long since baby!Turtle could have written those words, and I just -- I'm scared that you'll have to get used to feeling like that, and I hate that it's any kind of a possibility, and blaaaaaah. :P The world is a terrifying place, everybody being xenophobic and sensible people feeling helpless, I don't LIKE it. *hugs you some more* Sorry, I don't mean to dump on you, I just... it's a hell of a thing. O_O

[thisbluespirit]

*hugs back* I know; I hope you don't vote Trump in! For your and all ours sakes!

But just right now, even the xenophobia of the campaign that brought this in pales into nothing compared to the potential ramifications. At the moment we're in a cushioned limbo and things could go any way at all, but we literally broke the country yesterday and even if that happily proves temporary, even if we can make things better again, there will be more economic hardship in the short-term at the very least and probably not only for the UK. We could have thrown away any hope of prosperity for generations. It is both sobering and terrifying to witness - and there wasn't even any good reason for it. Nobody needed to have this Referendum now, but we did.

[ravenskyewalker.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you have no need to apologize. It's all very strange and confusing. {{hugs}}

[thisbluespirit]

It is! I just think I was maybe a bit OTT yesterday, but honestly, it's going to take years to know whether this was just another thing, a good thing, or the worst thing we could possibly have done, but we really did break something yesterday - for good or for ill. And that is weird thing to happen. I've never known anything like it.

But thanks! ♥

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

*hugs gently*

[thisbluespirit]

*hugs back*

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't apologise! It was a massive event, and a lot of us have good reason to worry. Your first paragraph made me think of this cartoon (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/06/24/2506-MATT-PORTAL-WEB-P1-large_trans++qVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.png). Oh what a weekend it's been.

In the meantime, I wish you good fannishnessing. :)

[thisbluespirit]

I'm finding it hard to stick to the fannishness. It doesn't help to sit and worry instead, but at the same time, what the hell did we just do? Why? I can't help grieving first. I hope it'll all work out somehow, but I don't think any of us can blithely assume at this point that it will. We're sitting in a cushioned bubble before the first effects hit us and goodness only knows what's ahead. :-(

(The cartoon is funny, though. Thanks!)

ETA: I went to make icons. Instantly more calm again. :-D

[clocketpatch]

No apologies needed. *hugs*

Yesterday everyone at my workplace just stopped doing work for two hours so we could refresh the internet and figure out what the heck was going on. The entire world is a bit confused right now. Given that you're at the epicentre of it, you've got every right to express yourself about it.

[thisbluespirit]

Waking up on Friday morning to find Leave had won was bad enough - to sit through the day and watch my country literally fall apart was just horrifiying. I don't think I've even begun to process it. I don't think anybody knows what's going to happen, including the people who are supposed to be in charge. All we can do is hope that someone can come up with a way forward that will mitigate some of the damage. Maybe eventually it'll all be for the good, but there's going to be a whole lot more pain and suffering before that. Even if we found a magic fix next week, we've still caused a further downturn in the economy - and the global economy - when we hadn't even recovered from the recession yet. *throws up hands at the people who gambled with our country's stability and future*

[newmoonstar]

You don't need to apologize. When your country makes a decision that will have global political and economic repercussions for years to come, you have every right to vent. Particularly when it was a decision influenced by extremists playing on ignorance and fear. Here in the US, our elections tend to go that way far too often, and I'm very scared that my country will make the same mistake in November. The rise of racist, xenophobic politicians playing on fear seems now to be global phenomenon, and that is very frightening.

My hope is that people everywhere see Brexit as a warning, and that those who were ignorant and indifferent are woken-up the the reality that ignorance and indifference will have real-life consequences for them, and join the rest of us in fighting politics motivated by hate & fear. *crosses fingers*

I hope things somehow turn out better than what we expect, but in the meanwhile- *HUGS*

And if you're looking for fannish distraction, have you heard about Big Finish having a short story contest? The winning entry gets recorded as a Short Trip read by Nick Briggs! I'm still toying with giving it a try, even though the submission deadline is in a few days- a good excuse to sit down and write!

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! It is just incredibly scary to know that we might have irrevocably broken our country and all through sheer needless stupidity. I hope things turn out okay too, somehow, some way but right now nobody knows and I'm just oscillating between horror and grief and anger.

It is not fun to be the dire warning to the rest of the world. Useful, but nobody wants to be it. /o\

[newmoonstar]

Oh dear, I hope that didn't sound awful! I don't mean AT ALL that I'm in any way glad that this happened to Britain. I just find it a helpful coping mechanism when you can't undo something to tell yourself that people can learn from their mistake, and to hope they can still do better next time. But it would definitely be far preferable never to have made the first mistake at all. O_o

[thisbluespirit]

Don't worry - I didn't for a minute think you meant it that way, but I definitely never wanted to have to point to Britain as a terrible Warning of anything, really. I think we're all hoping we can at least learn from it and move on, although the fact that all our leaders seem more interested in still playing power games rather than addressing the situation doesn't fill me with confidence right now.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I feel the same. What will become of the UK? The turkeys have voted for Christmas.

[thisbluespirit]

I know! And as yet the axe hasn't fallen, so they're all still celebrating while the rest of us look on in horror. All we can do, I suppose is everything we can and hope it'll turn out better than it seems right now and not worse. :-/

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

*hugs you tightly*

Hoping for the best for you all. And you take care! ♥

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! ♥

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I feel too (except that I just got back from Paris so I had some of it over there and now am catching up and it's VERY UNPLEASANT.) We'll all just have to grit out teeth, get on with it and cope. We've survived before. We'll find a way to do it again. *hugs*

[thisbluespirit]

Indeed, we shall just have to. ♥ (I'm feeling a bit better now - partly because I actually got to go out today! With anything like this, being stuck alone with too much time to think about it only makes it worse. But it's been pretty awful all round.)