onefaintingrobin

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On these tags from a reblog:

I do totally appreciate this feeling. Here's why I think you don't have to stress yourself out about it.

1. It's possible to think critically and still be generous or come out liking something. Not just on the broader level of analysing something and coming out with a still positive opinion, but also because there are different types of reading. There's this essay by Eve Sedgwick where she poses a perspective of 'reparative reading'. In it, she argues not for seeing critical reading as being about looking for issues and finding reasons to dismiss, what she calls 'paranoid reading', and instead looking at work with a more hopeful slant. When reading in a reparative way, you look to make the perceived issues MAKE SENSE. For example, one could criticise, say, the slightly odd disconnect between the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the films that came before, how they seem to undercut some of the plot points in Return of the Jedi, especially Palpatine's death; a Paranoid Reading looks to explain why that means the films are bad in some way as a result, but a reparative reading looks to find meaning to bridge them. For me, I like to see the sequel films as a messy but slightly timely metaphor for real life politics. The First Order are a slightly immature-feeling rehash of the Empire, yes, but we can see that as analogous to the rise of modern contemporary fascist movements; I feel like most of the Far Right could be summed up as 'what if the Nazis were really fucking cringe but just as dangerous'. There are plenty of ways I could take a reparative reading to several questionable plot choices in Doctor Who, and approaching things with a desire to find meaning rather than pick it apart helps a lot. It's why, for example, I can find things to absolutely LOVE about the reveal of Ruby's mother.

2. While Tumblr can sometimes give you a different feeling, it actually is okay to just enjoy something for entertainment's sake. Art is always political, yes, but that doesn't mean that you're obliged to always see enjoying art as political praxis. If you ignore and refuse to engage with any art on a critical or political level when relevant (the example that comes to mind is Harry Potter fans trying to stick their fingers in their ears and shout 'separate art from the artist' over and over again), that isn't ideal. But I also think that, especially when we're not talking about something with a tangible harm like HP kinda has now, it is okay to just enjoy something. In fact, I think in the current climate it is pretty important to be able to do that. We live in a culture where we spend all day every day on social media having the worst of humanity beamed directly into our eyes, where politics is, for most people, utterly inescapable. If we're not even allowed to watch the silly space show for kids without feeling like our viewing has deep political ramifications, we burn out.

The truth is, media literacy is important, in my opinion, not because we always have to be on our perfect critically analytic behaviour at all times, but because we need to have those skills for when we need them. While deeper critical analysis is valuable, and fun to weirdos like me, where media literacy is CRUCIAL isn't in whether Doctor Who is good or not, or whether Your Fave Is Problematic. We are allowed to enjoy things!

And for what it's worth, I DO critically think about Doctor Who and I still love it. I've got my criticisms, including of the recent series, but I still love it, because that actually is the critical conclusion I've made.

The problem with being a Doctor Who fan on here right now is that I actually like Doctor Who. But algorithms don't seem to realise that, so I'm getting fed a constant stream of people shitting on any variety of eras.

Like, every version of Doctor Who has its flaws, but honestly? I don't think there is a single era or series that I think is flatly BAD. And honestly, most of the crazy 'big swing' decisions the show makes, whether we're talking about some of the stuff from the last couple of episodes, or the Timeless Child, or anything else, I honestly love all of it.

I dunno, I just like Doctor Who, in basically every form it comes in.

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The problem with being a Doctor Who fan on here right now is that I actually like Doctor Who. But algorithms don't seem to realise that, so I'm getting fed a constant stream of people shitting on any variety of eras.

Like, every version of Doctor Who has its flaws, but honestly? I don't think there is a single era or series that I think is flatly BAD. And honestly, most of the crazy 'big swing' decisions the show makes, whether we're talking about some of the stuff from the last couple of episodes, or the Timeless Child, or anything else, I honestly love all of it.

I dunno, I just like Doctor Who, in basically every form it comes in.

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HRT Crowdfunder

Feel a tad embarrassed doing this, but I'm trying to raise money to get start with HRT. I was hoping to be in work by now, and could have already gotten the ball rolling, but that's taking so much longer than I expected. No pressure, but the GoFundMe is here.

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We need Twitter to silence LGBT hate. Homophobia, biphobia and transphobia have no place online #no2LGBTHate http://thndr.me/zKI1mH

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Sofa sitting positions

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Stress (This may turn into a video at a later date)

Hey, everyone. Long time no see… As I'm writing this, I'm sitting outside, on my own, in the dark, at 19.40 at night. Why? Because frankly, I needed some space to think. If you know me in real life, then you might know that I'm generally not the first one to stress out about things. My GCSEs brought me almost no anxiety whatever, and even my AS-levels didn't seem so bad in the run up. But apparently, this year, that isn't the case. For some reason, I'm genuinely getting stressed out about school, for pretty much the first time ever. And the problem with having never really had any problems like this to any great extent before is that I don't really know what to do about it. My whole life, my rule has been that if something starts to stress me out, I stop. But that doesn't work anymore. I've got IT work to finish, but it feels like I've got so much to do that I can't even begin to think how to attack it. I've got two books I should have finished reading for English weeks ago, neither of which I'm anywhere close to completing. And the one lesson that doesn't give me any direct stress is the one I got an E in last year, and need to work out how the hell to boost it up. But what do I do about it? Putting it aside doesn't help me in the long-run, but procrastinating is the only way I can cope, or at least it feels like it is. So I keep thinking about it, stressing about it, and that leaves me pretty much incapable of doing, well, anything. And I can't even really work out what the problem is. So I keep going in circles, worrying about everything until I end up sitting outside, on my own, in the dark, at 19.40 at night, writing a messy, incoherent blog post. It's like bloody French all over again, but with everything So Shit Shit Shit Shit Basically Going mad. Send help. Or something. Adam.

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Just a little message to anyone like me getting their A-level results today. #alevelresults

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Warning: I’ve been thinking again

About the EU Referendum this time. Obviously. Not much else to talk about today.

Throughout this whole ordeal, I've been safely stuck on the opinion that we should 100% remain as a part of the European Union. It's worked pretty well overall for the last 50 years, and honestly, none of the arguments I've seen from the Leave side seemed convincing in the slightest. Everything I've seen and read makes it clear that the Leave campaign, as in the actual politicians involved in it and the things that they have said, was based on misinformation, fear and basic xenophobia (The video from John Oliver that's been floating around the week explains this pretty clearly). 

But, despite the fact that to me it seemed absolutely insane that we would choose to leave the organisation that's contributed so much to the fact that none of us have been trying to blow each other up for the last 70 years, the results came in today, and we voted to leave, with a 52-48% majority. Now, firstly, that's an incredibly slim majority. We knew it would be close for the whole time, and that's definitely proven to be true. 

When the news first came in, and still at the point of writing this, I'm genuinely scared to see what is going to happen next. No country has ever left the EU before, and we have no idea of the long-term effects of this. Short term? In the two hours since the results came in, the value of the pound has dropped 10% (Bearing in mind that 1% is considered a huge drop, this is an insane amount to have dropped), we've overall lost 350 BILLION pounds from our economy, and the politicians in the leave camp already seem to be backing out of the promises that they made throughout the campaign. That's a worrying start. Now, of course, this could improve. No matter what the result, it was always pretty likely that the pound was going to take a hit. But 10% is a staggering amount to have dropped, and is going to have some serious repercussions over the next year at least, more than likely. 

To be brutally honest, I'm pretty pissed off about all of this. And I still am. I feel like this was the perfect opportunity to show a world that's pretty much falling apart at the seams that we can stay united and strong. And what we've actually done is decided to separate ourselves from the rest of the organisation that we were such a big part of. (Side note - The 'lack of control' the UK has in the EU parliament is pretty well summed up by the fact that since the EU started, we've been in favour of almost all of the laws suggested, and overall have been on the losing side of these votes a mere 2% of the time.)

So yeah, I'm pretty pissed. But (This is going to get worrying preachy) after all of this, after the initial shock has calmed down, and after a bit of thinking, I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Whatever the result, it's been made pretty clear to me that if we're trying to promote Unity, we're going to have to really work at it. Yes, I disagree with the decision, very strongly. But, much as I hate it, the decision has been made, and though I don't think it was the right decision, I also think that we have another choice to make: We can either go sulking off, sitting in the corner of our little podium, grumbling about how 'it's not our problem' and 'They've brought this on themselves', or we can try to make the best of a bad situation. I don't believe that there's such thing as a definite reality, and though it'll be hard, and there's going to be a lot of struggling, I do believe that we can still make this work. Yes, we've rejected the unity of the EU, but that doesn't mean we have to reject unity altogether. If we want to try and reduce the impact of this decision, then we're going to have to make that effort ourselves, and we're going to have to do it as the United Kingdom that we're so obsessed with being. It's going to be hard, and things are likely going to be bad for a while, but there's no reason why we can't get through this if we work together.

2. We shouldn't let this change us. There's a huge instinct to show contempt towards the people who disagree with us. I've felt it as well. But, I don't want to let that happen. I have friends who, if we had been given the opportunity, would have voted remain. And, although I think that doing so would have been a mistake, I don't want to let the knowledge of that change my relationship with these people. Though I've had a lot of struggles with my faith recently, which I'll probably go into another time, one thing I can't help but believe in is God himself. And, flicking through the internet, I came across this verse: 'My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.' - James 1, 19-20'. Now, I get that a lot of people probably don't believe in God. But, personally, I tend to feel like when stuff like this comes up so perfectly, it means something. Like I said in the first conclusion I found, if we just give up, then this exit really will be the disaster that we're expecting. Anger isn't going to get us anywhere, and I for one refuse to let one differing opinion overshadow everything else.

So, final conclusion, we're probably pretty screwed, and I don't get why, but now that it's happened, we need to make sure that we work together to make sure that we still have a future to look forward too.

(Sources of some of the stuff I brought up earlier) John Oliver on Brexit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8 Pound devaluation: http://goo.gl/jhaHIQ EU Parliament Statistics: https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/

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David Cameron might seriously wanna think about pulling rank and using Parilamentary sovereignty (never thought I’d have to use that phrase outside of a constitutional law essay) to his advantage. This referendum (unlike the 2011 one on the proposed change to the voting system) is not legally binding. There is technically nothing stopping him from disregarding a brexit vote.

It’s a sad day in British history when our only real hope rests with a man who once skull-fucked a dead pig.

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Okay but like. Asexual forest nymphs.

Some dude: Asexual? So you're a plant?

Nymph: *daisies growing from her hair* Well yes but that's beside the point.

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Retro Game Room Version 2 I needed to patch the walls and paint, so I thought I might as well change it all up.

23 different consoles and handhelds, about 450 old games. Framemeister xrgb-mini upscaler so it doesn’t look bad on a new tv, handmade custom MAME cabinet, and a fuzzy chair and fuzzy carpet :)

A lot of work, and a lifetime of collecting!

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Error 404: Brain not found

Hey, guys. As I'm sure that I've mentioned before, this place is basically a place to rant and throw out my own thoughts. I need to do that today. So, I'm just going to be throwing out what's been going on in my head for the last couple of days. This might not make any sense, but this is for me more than anyone. It's not that long until my exams start. So, of course, this is the perfect time for me to start to question whether or not there's even any point of me being at school. That's the main issue I've been having, it's that in all honesty, school's kind of seeming a little pointless to me, because I honestly do think it would be a possiblity to get, or at least do, what I want without it. I think that the main problem that started this is that when I picked my A-Level options, I was choosing them all based on the fact that I wanted to go into journalism, those options being English Literature, IT, Psychology and French. Now, we all know how the French thing turned out (If not, go back and read my post from last year about it), but that was fine. So, I carried on, that all being fine until it came to work experience. I emailed a local newspaper twice about doing my work experience there, with no response. I eventually ended up contacting the daughter of a friend of my dad's who worked as a producer at Maidstone Studios. I spended an excellent day (They only could find space for me for one day, because they were kind of near the end of a deadline) there, just observing people edit Mister Maker (Yes, the children's TV series. It was pretty cool). And, by the end of the week, after spending the rest of the time putting together a video for a company that sends refurbished computers out to Africa for the rest of my work experience, I had basically 180'd around, and had come to the conclusion that want I wanted to do was make films (Well, TV, more specifically, but potato potato. That really doesn't work written down...). I mean, I'm working on it, kind of. I'm already making my series (ZenithSeries.tumblr.com if anyone's interested), I've got plans for at least four short films, and am making one of those films for my EPQ. As I said in a post on the Zenith blog, I've got enough ideas in a folder on my computer to literally last me a lifetime of TV making. But I'm stuck in school. And that's what brings me to what started this mini-spiral I'm in right now. In English the other day, we were given a surprise essay. I managed to squeeze two half-decent paragraphs out, which was fine. And then I lost it. And then I started to get stressed.

Now, I didn't get stressed partically at all by my GCSEs. That was because I have a rule that I tend to stick by, which is that if something starts to stress me out, I stop. It works, in general. It works brilliantly when doing work at home or in free periods. However, when you're in class, you can't just stop and watch anime. So, I kept reading the extract over and over again, still finding nothing. And while frantically searching through three pages of Jane Eyre, I started drifting into the spiral of thoughts that I started to describe. Do I really need to be at school at all? Can't I just do what I want? Can't I just make stuff? But I can't do anything about it, obviously. So I just kind of continued like that for the 10-20 minutes left in the lesson. And by the point I'd stopped I'd honestly got myself too wound up to finish the work, so my essay's a piece of shit, not that it was important. I'm honestly not sure what to think of any of it at this point, to be honest. I just don't have the motivation for school at the moment when I know that, with a hell of a lot of work, I could probably do what I want to do without. But I don't want to just give up on school. But it doesn't feel that important. And so on and so forth. See my problem? As I said, this is kind of just me throwing out what's in my head. But this blog is basically just a way of me organising stuff in my head, and ranting and stuff, so that's not important... So, basically, shit. Adam.

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original post [x]

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This is Kjell Lindgren. He’s a NASA astronaut who just got back from 5 months on the International Space Station. There are two reasons why this picture is hilarious:

His wife is flawless and makes bad space puns to make him do household chores.

I have that shirt. Thousands of people have that shirt. That shirt is available at Target. Which means actual astronaut Kjell Lindgren, with his wardrobe already full of NASA-issued and logo-emblazoned clothes, was at Target, saw a NASA shirt, and was like, “Yes, I am buying this because this is what I want to spend my actual astronaut salary on.”

 tl;dr NASA employs a bunch of fucking nerds