#its legitimately weird to sit around and hate on a bunch of kids

[mamaangiwine]

"Somebody needs to do something about Sephora 10-year-olds...these i-pad babies are so rude and don't do what they're told....oh my God, these kids can't read and have no social skills...Ugh, look at these little consumers and their Stanley Cups."

I am, in fact, actively worried for these children and I refuse to hate them for the ways that society, as a whole, has failed them.

#people out here encouraging the worst in people #and many are uncritically taking the bait #im done #its legitimately weird to sit around and hate on a bunch of kids

[nellie-elizabeth]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The End Is at Hand/What We're Fighting For (7x12/13)

And so we're at the end! Let's dive in.

Cons:

I wish I could give a different response, but a lot of this finale had me feeling a little cold. It's not that it was bad, but all the time spent on Kora and Garrett and on other characters who I don't give a shit about... it felt wasted to me. Kora showing up, and the whole "hello sister" thing, like she's Damon from The Vampire Diaries or some shit... and the redemption arc... all of it felt so telegraphed, and so unsatisfying, seeing as Kora is a new character who we haven't had time to get to know. Daisy's emotional arc ends up being about two characters who were only introduced in this season: Daniel and Kora. I liked the stuff with Sousa, but come on! It's supposed to be about family or whatever... Kora is brand new, there was no time to make it land.

The fact that the whole plan hinges on Kora, and on connecting with Daisy... I loved what Daisy said in last week's episode, about how Simmons is her sister and that's where her focus should be. Found Family > A stranger that you just met who happens to share blood with you. Yikes.

And then I thought about the characters they chose to bring back, and the characters that didn't get even a mention. What about Bobbi and Hunter, for goodness' sake?!

Now that I've seen the whole season, I feel like May's character was really wasted here at the end. I like the idea behind her journey, of coming to terms with her emotions through this new lens. That stuff is all well and good. But I can't help feeling a little bit like she just hung out in the background being blank-faced and then at the end she has some good talks with Coulson about how she's really changed and grown, and that's it? Sure, they gave the Chronicoms "empathy" but that felt more like May was a Chekov's gun, not a satisfying character growth moment for her.

"This is the team's last mission" and "this is the last time we'll all be in the same room"... literally why, though? Okay, sure, the band is breaking up, the team is disbanding, people are moving on to new phases of their lives. That's fine. But nothing about how this show ended made it seem like they'd actually never be in the same room together. Why can't they have real in-person reunions?

And speaking of? I feel like I'm going to be in the minority here, but I hated the epilogue stuff. Like... truly, intensely, hated. The facts of the situation are fine. Daisy and Sousa are off in space with Kora. That's fine. May is teaching. Cool. Fitz and Simmons have retired and are just focusing on their family. Love it. Coulson is seeing the world. Mack and Yo-Yo are still at work. All of that makes sense.

But remember when Daisy got all choked up, talking about how she didn't want them to become people who used to be close, who would catch up every once in a while and that was it? Well... that scene, where they all holograph in for a meeting, was exactly that. It wasn't bittersweet, it was just awkward and bitter. The conversation felt incredibly stilted, and everyone was being so wistful and weird and saying awkward dramatic stuff to one another. I think a much better tone would have been set if instead of this "one year later" awkward sit-down, we'd had a bunch of rapid-fire little moment showing their connection, like Simmons saying to Fitz, "oh, don't let me forget to send that research to Daisy," and then Daisy could be in the middle of something and conference in to ask May a question about something, and May could casually mention that Coulson was going to be stopping by soon, and Daisy should conference in to see him, and then Mack could be on the phone with Yo-Yo when he gets a text message from Fitz... like just moments to show that they've all moved on to new things in their lives, but their worlds are still connected. Instead we got something that felt incredibly staged, incredibly sentimental, and read more like a bunch of actors sitting around saying goodbye to a TV show they were on, instead of characters being their authentic selves.

Pros:

Fitzsimmons backstory was appropriately sweet, of course. I mean, everyone knew Fitzsimmons had a secret baby, but it was still adorable and I loved the little actress and the backstory, and Fitz walking Simmons through her memories to help build a bridge back to their family was really sweet and very authentically them. I also loved Piper and Flint guarding the kid while Fitz and Simmons were off saving the world.

Deke was... the highlight of the finale, for real. When he said "Alright people, I've already made up my mind, let's get to it!" I legitimately got chills and teared up a little bit. This is how you do an epic sacrifice without always making it death. We didn't need a main character to die in this finale in order to make it epic and intense and impactful. Deke staying behind? After all the work he put in, after all he did to belong? It works. It's appropriately tragic, that they'll never see each other again, but it's not too devastating, because Deke is the master of making himself at home wherever he is. He's already a rock god in the eighties, and you just know he'll make it work. The one thing I was bummed about is that he didn't get more of a connection with Fitz there at the end. It felt like he really craved Fitz's approval the whole time, and never really quite got it... and then he spent this last season without seeing him, and then they were separated forever. Kind of a bummer, but I guess you can't have everything!

I know that the "cons" section on this one was pretty long, but that doesn't mean I didn't have fun with this finale. The framing of the epilogue was really bad, in my opinion, but the endgame fates of the characters all worked really nicely for me. I especially liked how Coulson and May are in this comfortable "maybe" place and that's where we end them. Coulson is going to swing by and see May, but they're not a couple, and maybe they won't be, but maybe they will... it works for them. They were never the most showy, dramatic characters in the world, and this soft epilogue for them works so nicely. Ending it with Coulson in the car was... really a perfect button on things.

I also think Daisy and Sousa are sweet. I will never stop being bitter about Peggy Carter, of course, but this actually worked nice, and I love that actor, and Daniel is such a lovely character... so I'm happy he's happy, and I'm happy Daisy is out there with her boyfriend (and her sister), winning at life. Mack and Sousa had a cute little bromance going, and I'm sure they stay in touch and tease Daisy about "Quake" for a long time to come.

Everything about the villains had me YAWNING, but I did like Coulson pulling that final trick on Sybil and the day eventually being saved. There were some good bad-ass moments, like Yo-Yo doing her slow-mo fighting, and May pulling out the Cavalry skills to overpower their enemies.

I feel like I don't have much else to say. A lot of things about this finale didn't quite land with me, and I felt like the sentimental tone didn't have its intended effect. But that being said, all my faves got a happy ending, and I can feel grateful for that!

This finale gets...

7/10

The show overall? Oh boy. I've rarely been more torn. The first season of this show was one of the more bizarre/intense viewing experiences of my life. If you go back and read my reviews, you'll know I was not enjoying myself at ALL. But then the twist with Ward hit, and my veins lit up. Skye went from being one of the most annoying characters on television to a dynamic, empowering woman who I was happy to follow for seven years' worth of story. Fitzsimmons is a genuinely good love story, about people who beat the odds no matter what. The found family vibes are real, and I love them. But that first part of the first season, and these last few seasons, have been disjointed. They've been all over the place. There have been good additions (Flint, Deke, Sousa, Enoch), and there have been bad or lazy ones (Kora, basically every villain in this last season that wasn't a Chronicom). I think at the end of the day I'll give the whole show a grade based on how excited I always was to watch it. There were weeks that I didn't really care to find out what happened next, and weeks where I eagerly counted down the minutes. I guess by definition, that makes this show a mixed bag!

7.5/10

#review #agents of shield #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. review #agents of shield review #aos #marvel

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 1)

Years in the future, but not many…

TIER: Now what in the heck is this I wonder?

BRIGHT: ...the reader wonders what’s going on now, as we jump to a sun-bleached desert with a Wayward Vagabond wandering across it.

CHEL: Here, we introduce another count:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 1

Should the baffling developments to which this count is applied be explained satisfactorily later, we’ll take the points off, but we use the counts in the present to express how one feels on seeing them for the first time. Even if it does get explained later, I feel like this is oddly placed, especially since it doesn’t get explored in any detail here. Mileage may vary, though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think when I first encountered this upd8 I didn’t click on the link.

BRIGHT: Thankfully - and unexpectedly - this state of affairs only lasts a page, and then we return to something associated with the storyline so far: Rose Lalonde has started a game walkthrough of SBurb. After spending quite a few words to say that she will be brief, she explains that installing the game is bringing about the end of the world.

Then she takes a couple more paragraphs to express her condolences and reassure everyone that it was all inevitable anyway.

CHEL: Not a case of HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING, as I considered briefly - writing the FAQ is about the only thing she can do in the circumstances. Warning people not to play the game won’t help now, since enough people have already started that the resulting meteors are going to destroy the Earth anyway. All anyone can do now is set up their own session and hope to escape through it, and all Rose can do to help is advise them in the hopes some succeed. Sucks for all the people in the world who don’t have a computer, though, but the apocalypse isn’t exactly supposed to be fair.

FAILURE ARTIST: Amidst her purple prose she uses the r-slur. It’s one thing reading John or TG say it, it’s another thing with her.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 5

BRIGHT: Over on the next page, John has survived! As has his house, and his father, although there are eyes peering out from under the bed...and through the kitchen door...oh, yeah, and the house is now perched atop a rocky crag in a dark sky.

FAILURE ARTIST: That’s a good atmospheric animation. The next animation doesn’t have the [S] for sound but it’s longer than a couple seconds. I probably accidentally clicked next when I first saw it.

Next, we get a new voice: some mysterious insistent prompter who calls John “BOY”. We’ll find out later who this person is.

CHEL: I’d say this doesn’t earn a WHAT IS HAPPENING point because we’re used to John obeying prompts. It’s curious that the style has changed, but not completely confusing.

FAILURE ARTIST: Next comes the first walkaround game! The reader moves John via the mouse, arrow keys, or the WASD keys. When you click on certain objects, a little yellow box comes up with messages clearly from the mysterious prompter. If you click that box, John’s opinions come in a green-lined box. You can walk around the whole house and backyard - except for John’s father’s room.

Since this is an interactive game, you can go in whatever order you want, but for the sake of summarizing, let’s go by the order in the printed edition.

John surveys the balcony. The prompter wants you to “do something with” what it calls the “ghost clown” and John explains that ghost clown is the kernelsprite and the Sburb server player is supposed to be the one to prototype it. Meanwhile, the kernelsprite spouts wingding.

John goes down the hallway. Dad’s room is locked so John goes to the bathroom. He notes that Rose did a “piss-poor” job of fixing the bathroom. He wonders if he could just pee over the cliff. Thankfully, this never happens.

John goes into his bedroom. It’s a mess. The door has been ripped off the hinge and there’s black goo everywhere. John is annoyed at the mess but begrudgingly admits Rose saved his life. John (or the reader) takes the time to look at the posters.

The prompter doesn’t like Little Monsters anymore than TG but John wishes he could hang out with Fred Savage. John’s wish to hang out with candy-corn-horn monsters could be considered foreshadowing and Hussie jokes about it being that but Hussie probably didn’t have trolls in mind at that point. Clicking the Con Air poster elicits the question “IS THAT JOHN CUSACK?” from the prompter. When we find out who the prompter is, it will make little sense they would recognize John Cusack, but the actor is a universal constant. Clicking the Ghostbusters 2 poster, we find out TG calls the film “nasty manbro bukkake theater” and poor innocent John doesn’t know what that means. It’s rather disturbing that TG does know. (CALL CPA PLEASE?)

CHEL: Not sure. At that age with access to the internet I picked up a bunch of obscene words without actually seeing the material they applied to. Then again, this is TG, and considering his later-seen home life it’s quite possible he didn’t just get curious on Urban Dictionary, so…

CALL CPA PLEASE: 1

FAILURE ARTIST: He examines the totem lathe, which the prompter calls a “sewing machine”, and wonders if other punch cards will make other shapes.

If you click on the computer, you see Rose is trying to get in touch with John. He ignores her for now.

John leaves the bedroom and makes his way down the stairs. Both he and the prompter hate all the harlequin art, but John does like the crude bust sitting on the floor.

The Cruxtruder is still in the middle of the room with its lid open. When you click on the lid, the prompter commands John to reseal the opening and John says “Pandora’s tube” has been opened, which is awfully literary for him. When you click on the Cruxtruder itself, the prompter demands John push it and exit the house. John says he can’t without grist and comes close to dropping the comic’s name.

When you click on the urn, the prompter commands John to topple it. John refuses, saying he’d never do that… at least intentionally. If you click on the portrait above the urn of Nanna, John wishes for her wisdom.

The prompter calls the doors to the kitchen “like you see in a cowboy saloon”, a turn-of-phrase that will be weird when we find out who the prompter is.

So John goes into the kitchen. There’s lots of black goo around and an orphaned bowl of cake batter, but no Dad. The black goo is apparently oil. John wishes for his father back. If you click on Colonel Sassacre’s book, John declares that both it and WISE GUY are his “favoritest book”. The prompter wants John to eat some of the Betty Crocker cake mix but John calls Betty Crocker a “wench”. This is the start of John’s feud with Betty Crocker. On the fridge is a primitive drawing of Slimer that John drew at the tender age of almost thirteen. This won’t be the only picture on a fridge we see. There’s board games in the kitchen cabinet, a callback to Death’s games in Problem Sleuth and also a weird place to put board games. If you click on the kitchen phone, you find out the prompter does know what a telephone is, but this phone doesn’t work.

Through the door is a laundry room, but both John and the prompter agree there’s no time for that. Note that the prompter knows what washer and dryer machines are.

Next, John goes into the backyard. The prompter wants John to fiddle with the live wires and John wisely refuses. John checks what the prompter calls a “wall-mounted gadget” (electric meter) and discovers the house is still powered. How come the prompter is familiar with so many electrical devices but doesn’t know about live wires and electric meters? In his commentary, Hussie does note that this is strange.

CHEL: To be fair, “magic” is a legitimate power source in this world.

FAILURE ARTIST: From the tree hangs a pair of trick handcuffs over the void and the prompter wants John to claim them. The prompter seems to be out to get John killed.

John goes back into the house (via what the prompter calls the “luncheon parlor”) and goes to the piano room. If you click on the huge mural, John says Cirque du Soleil filed a restraining order on Dad. I think Hussie once said it was because Dad tried to shave a performer. The prompter wants John to “consume nut” (again with the death!)...

CHEL: “Consume nut”? *immature snickering*

FAILURE ARTIST: ...but John says there’s probably no hospitals in this dark realm. If you click on the piano, the sheet music for Showtime pops up and that songs plays instead of the constant wind noise. Maybe you should visit this room first. There’s a safe in this room but John doesn’t know the combination.

Though Dad seems obsessed with clowns, we’ll later find out something that turns that on its head. However, Hussie does have his own interest in clowns, having once created a comic about a hapless circus clown named Whistles.

According to the book commentary, the entire walkaround game took less than twenty-four hours to draw, write, and program. Still looks good. That wind noise does get awfully annoying.

CHEL: The walkaround game is also the original source of “Trickster Mode”, an Easter egg in the Flash in which Hussie’s face floats on the screen and John looks like this:

Speculation ran rampant in fanfic and art for years, usually involving the “Tricksters” being the Superpowered Evil Sides of the kids. This isn’t quite how it turned out when Trickster Mode appeared again (much to my disappointment, I admit, I liked those), but that’s for much, much later in the comic.

John and Rose chat again. John can’t find his dad. Rose explains that John and his house have been transported to a mysterious somewhere which saved him from the meteor impact that destroyed his neighbourhood. Her research has turned up many similar collisions across the world, getting bigger with time, and the two conclude that the objective of the game must be to stop the meteors and save the world. There’s a rather cute bit of dialogue where Rose wishes John happy birthday and mentions her gift to him is in progress, and she helps him retrieve his father’s PDA from the precipice for portable internet.

FAILURE ARTIST: In Andrew Hussie’s annotation, he says this conversation made fans see the two as a “shippable commodity” (Hussie’s exact phrase) but compares them to shipping Colonel Sassacre/Pogo Ride.

CHEL: I’m pretty sure he was being facetious there, especially given that equally weird ships are actually canon, but the worse parts of the fandom latched onto it and John/Rose shippers get a lot of shit, mostly from people who ship Rose with girls. People who ship John with boys seem a lot more mellow about it. That’s Tumblr for you.

FAILURE ARTIST: On Dad’s PDA, you can see a chatroom called SERIOUS BUSINESS where a FedoraFreak is updating everyone on his rescue of his wardrobe from a house fire. FedoraFreak’s story doesn’t end here. While he doesn’t ever appear on screen his conversation can be seen on the PDA a few times later and at the end a character exposits important backstory to him before he passes away. Andrew Hussie brought up FedoraFreak a lot on his defunct Formspring with facts that like many of his answers on that site might be just taking the piss.

CHEL: John is now starting to notice the mysterious commands in his head, and attempts to refuse to follow them further; the cut back to the Wayward Vagabond immediately afterwards shows that he’s the one giving the commands by way of a strange-looking console. The console has four screens, three dark, one showing John. Now he’s starting to seem a lot less random, though we still don’t know much about him. If it was up to me I might have used this as his introduction instead of the first page with him that we got. He’s wrapped in rags but we can see enough of him to know that he doesn’t look human - his fingers are sharply pointed, his eyes are tiny and beady, he has no hair, and his flesh is stark black. Admittedly he doesn’t look a lot less like a real human than the stylised sprites of the human characters do, but you see what I mean, he doesn’t fit the appearance they have.

FAILURE ARTIST: I like this reveal of Wayward Vagabond, though I think again my first read I didn’t click the link. I don’t know why it’s a link and not a panel.

CHEL: Rose’s FAQ further explains what was demonstrated earlier, warning users not to activate the Cruxtruder until they’re ready to start the countdown. Once it is activated, it produces “cruxite dowels”, cylinders of mysterious material, which can be used in conjunction with the “Totem Lathe”, the “Alchemiter”, and special punchcards to produce objects from nothing, which will prove useful, though honestly I don’t know why they need to put the punchcard through the Totem Lathe and then the totem in the Alchemiter. I feel a step could be eliminated there in the design of these machines.

Unfortunately the FAQ also contains this line, and I don’t mean it’s unfortunate because Rose making typos is OOC:

Removing the lid signals the moment your life becomes a great whirling batshit pandemonium, somewhat resembling the chaos of an especially ethnic wedding. Somewhere, a soused uncle deliberately shatters china on the floor. Muddy livestock is decorated, and then lost track of. The question “Who’s mule is this?” at times can be heard over the din. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 6 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 3

FAILURE ARTIST: Oh wow. Guess there’s a lot hidden in these easy-to-skip parts.

CHEL: Rose herself is still in the observatory, watching the storm outside and the flaming collisions of meteors in the distance. Her laptop battery is running low, the house’s electricity is out, and the fire is getting closer, but there’s a backup generator behind the backyard mausoleum. While she has time, she tries to help John by prototyping the sprite for a second time, but it dodges the various items she tries to put in it, until Nanna’s ashes are knocked over a second time, directly onto it.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think it is said later that the prototyping is drawn to dead things. While the Betty Crocker box would be very interesting considering the mythology that later develops around that marketing icon, obviously the sprite would chose Nanna’s ashes.

CHEL: The Colonel Sassacre book has some importance in the lore, too. We’ll see that when more backstory is revealed.

The sprite disappears, but as John searches for an escape route from the house to retrieve the second CD-ROM, we see it again, slightly changed…

TG messages John and still seems pretty calm about John’s reports of weird happenings, coming out with a pretty entertaining rap about the situation. I still always giggle at “afflecks saclifice, i mean -crifice, would have to sufflice. aw fluck it”.

TG: ill have to make a rap about TG: i dont know TG: morgan freeman or something TG: being the president TG: itll be called TG: "obama made it so that no one gives a shit about black presidents in movies anymore" WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 4

FAILURE ARTIST: Fanon makes TG a great rapper but he really sucks and the only time he doesn’t (and in fact is the best in paradox space) we don’t actually get to read it.

CHEL: Probably that’s because the fans saying he’s great can’t rap any better. I know his rapping is a lot better than any I could do - for one thing he’s able to come up with one at all that quickly. I mean, yes, he does use words like “derangerous” in it, but I listen to a band who tried to rhyme “plane” with “California”.

FAILURE ARTIST: Good point. I can’t rap either.

CHEL: Is this a Problematykks point? I don’t think black people are the butt of the joke exactly, but…

Anyway. John stands on the balcony and Rose lifts the car from its precarious position on a spike of ground over the abyss, with the intention that John can break the window to retrieve the second part of the game, but just as he almost reaches it, her connection is lost, and the car plummets out of view below the clouds beneath the house.

FAILURE ARTIST: “The loss of any Dodge Dart is a terrible thing.”

CHEL: While checking his PDA, John is messaged by GG again! She’s surprised when he knows the explosion near her house was a meteor. Fortunately she’s unharmed, and mildly surprised but encouraging when John explains. Since he can’t reach Rose, John decides he has to get TG involved; TG is still rap-typing, and John’s reaction of “aaaaaarrrgh!” is pretty appropriate. John tells TG he has to use the game to save Rose, but TG’s lost his copy, and his brother apparently won’t be happy about TG borrowing his.

Rose gathers up her stuff to head out to the backup generator. Attempting to use her Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious in her strife specibus results in this creepiness, so instead she uses her knitting needles. Some pages are spent consulting the Grimoire anyway, introducing the reader to the NOBLE CIRCLE OF HORRORTERRORS and some diagrams of what appear to be windows.

FAILURE ARTIST: Problem Sleuth had weird teleporting window shenanigans so this is a callback to that.

Rose goes outside briefly and thinks of a T.S. Eliot quote (“April is the cruellest month..”) that she attributes to Charles Barkley. Misattributed quotes are a running gag in this comic but for all we know in this verse maybe Charles Barkley did say that.

CHEL: She re-enters the house and prepares to risk confrontation with her mother…

And suddenly we jump to TG.

FAILURE ARTIST: Insufferable Prick Dave, unlike John and Rose, doesn’t simply shake his head disapprovingly at the joke name but takes out his sword and slices the box. He has a strong sense of self. Strider was probably a Lord of the Rings reference but Andrew Hussie didn’t come up with the names. He only chose them.

Like I said earlier, Dave Strider is sort of an author avatar for Andrew Hussie. Dave and Andrew have a similar sense of humor, similar bodies of work, and perhaps similar neuroses.

Dave’s introduction lists a few interests that never really come up again. He is said to like BANDS NO ONE’S HEARD OF BUT [HIM] but we never hear of these bands either. Andrew Hussie in the printed book bemoans that he never got around to talking about that interest. He collects WEIRD DEAD THINGS IN JARS but besides creating one abomination this collection never amounts to anything. He even lampshades his forgotten interests much later.

CHEL: The other kids at least get something made of their interests; John’s bad movies come up a lot and are the starting topic of a later important conversation, and Rose and GG’s interests are relevant to their game powers. Dave’s, well… The swords are his favoured weapon, but swordplay is much more of his brother’s interest than his, which is thematically appropriate, but leaves Dave’s own interests rather out of the spotlight.

Dave has a very cramped-looking room with furniture made of boards and cinderblocks and a bed which appears to merely be two mattresses stacked together. When the prompts bring up the game, he has the game in his possession and claims to have no intention of playing it, showing this is a flashback.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave looks in his closet and finds the box his 13th birthday present from John came in plus a jar full of a yellow substance. John had given him shades worn by Ben Stiller in a movie and while the movie isn’t named it is the 2004 remake of Starsky & Hutch featuring the comedic duo Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. That movie appears in Problem Sleuth and much much later Stiller and Wilson become part of Homestuck’s mythology.

Meanwhile, the jar full of a yellow substance is not what you think.

CHEL: He browses the internet for a while, showing his satirical reviews of GameBro magazine, and introducing one of the comic’s favourite running gags, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

SBaHJ is something of a legend even outside the Stuckosphere. Hussie originally drew it as a parody of bad two-gamers-on-a-couch webcomics, intentionally using terrible art, terrible dialogue, confusing layouts, and non-sequitur “jokes”. It proved popular, so he turned it into an entire comic strip, getting steadily worse with each entry. It… well, go check it out, words can’t really do it justice. Be warned that there is some graphic and disturbing content including incest, scat, gore, and bestiality, albeit all drawn so poorly it’s kind of hard to tell what one is looking at.

FAILURE ARTIST: Not just a general parody, it was in response to this guy on the Penny Arcade forum who wanted to learn just enough art to make a two-gamers-on-a-couch webcomic and refused to listen to people who told him he’d have to learn the basics.

CHEL: In-universe, the comic is drawn by Dave, who has “legions of devoted fans, most of whom are totally convinced of your creative persona's sincerity. Which is just how you like it.” Dave’s devotion to the concept of “irony” is a major part of his character; he hides behind “irony” as his reason for doing almost everything, up to and including liking his birthday present.

We then see a few pages from the fictional webcomic John also liked, depicting the Midnight Crew. While this could be interesting and relevant (you’ll see why soon), it would be more so at a point when we weren’t waiting for one of the main characters to be rescued from a meteor strike and/or massive fire.

GET ON WITH IT!: 4

FAILURE ARTIST: That is a lot of panels just to spend watching a character read a webcomic, even considering the importance of the webcomic.

CHEL: And while we’re at it, I’m assigning another point for posting Dave’s first conversation with John again. The reader might need a reminder of what was said, yes, but the magic of the internet means it would be possible to provide a link back to that page rather than making archive bingers read the same thing twice.

GET ON WITH IT!: 5

The new conversation he has with Rose is entertaining and establishes their relationship of mutual friendly snark very well, though.

TG: if you ever find yourself in the position where your life depends on me playing that piece of shit game, then ill play

Unwise words, Dave.

We briefly cut back to John, who finds another mysterious trail of oil in his house, and whiplash back to Dave. This might be an issue of the webcomic format again; in a webcomic, it’s reasonable to occasionally remind the readers that yes, this character’s still there and still doing things. In a book or in an archive binge, it’s a little jarring, but if the former applies that’s not really the writer’s fault.

Back at Dave’s, there’s a Flash DJ game on Dave’s fancy mixing equipment (much nicer than anything else in the room, as we’ll discuss further later), on which Dave accidentally spills his bottle of what despite John’s comments is definitely apple juice. He emerges from his room to fetch a towel, and now we see some clearer hints of the weirdness of his home. In the short trip to the bathroom we see two marionettes, created out of photo collages in jarring contrast to Dave’s sprite self, one overlooking the hallway and one hanging in the shower. Dave, meanwhile, cleans up the juice and hangs the soaked CD-ROM envelopes up at his window to dry. Despite his remembering to turn off the electric fan so they don’t get blown out, the game discs naturally end up going out the window anyway in somewhat more unusual fashion; specifically, a crow flies in and randomly steals them. Dave’s attempts to stop the bird result in sylladex shenanigans, causing his katana to fly out, impale the bird, and send it and the game discs crashing through the window.

#homespork #homestuck #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #homestuck review #let's read homestuck #literary critique #sporking

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

So I’ve been kinda snide about the GoT finale, and that’s -- not entirely fair, because it was, I mean, fine.  It was fine, for what it was -- for what the show wanted to be, which it turns out was, “Will the Stark Kids make it out of these troubled times okay?”  And they mostly did, and it was fine (sorry, Robb).

And just so I don’t feel like the last living human without a Hot Take on Game of Thrones, I thought I’d take a shot at why, in spite of having a number of strengths and being sometimes pretty great, the overall arc and particularly the ending made me unhappy as One of Those Annoying Book Fans.  (I’m going to say all this like it’s Objectively True, which surely we all understand nothing is, so insert all the relevant in-my-opinions and all that.)

So I *love* the books, the books were a life-changing revelation for me when I started reading them back in 1997 when I was a slip of a 21-year-old lifelong fantasy fan.  And yeah, I know the reputation now is “ooooh, aren’t you a grimdark edgelord, so impressed with your gritty fantasy faux-realism,” but -- uh, I’m not sorry.  Because the thing is I wasn’t reading for “realism” in the sense of “this is like reality” -- I like *narrative,* which reality unfortunately noticeably lacks, and ASOIAF was very clearly a crafted narrative that was trying to say extremely specific things *about narrative* and about the cognitive dissonance that arises when narrative-loving human brains have to cope with narrative-indifferent reality.  That may seem like slicing the distinction pretty fine, but I think it matters.  The books weren’t just a bunch of shit happening because “in real life, that’s what would happen, just a bunch of shit.”  The specific shit that happened, and its ramifications and the way people processed said shit according to their distinctive needs and perspectives and hang-ups, was all extremely deliberate, and aimed straight at a Serious Thematic Point, which is that fantasy novels are obsessed with exactly the most irrelevant shit possible, and maybe that’s a problem.

These are books that revolve around a crisis in succession and legitimacy of kingship, like practically all high fantasy does (even more so back then, but it still seems pretty common).  An usurper sits on the throne and two legitimate heirs are in exile, and there’s this constant sense of unease, because from the perspective of our main viewpoint character, that’s -- good?  Because even though the Baratheon dynasty took over illegitimately, Robert is a better king than the last one, and Ned supports him.  Only Robert himself is uneasy and paranoid, his reign totally dependent on the goodwill of a family of rich assholes he hates and constantly haunted by the idea that the Targaryen children might come for their revenge, which by the cultural logic of Westeros, they’ll pretty much deserve.  So here you have all this palace intrigue and political skullduggery, and it’s immediately interesting because instead of being about restoring the Rightful King, it’s about propping up the guy who had the Rightful King killed, because he’s not great but the first guy was worse.

But the deeper you get into it, the more you start to realize that above and beyond the “subversive” flipped script of the idea of royal legitimacy, there’s a second and *far fucking better* subversion happening.

The point of the books is that IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER who sits on the throne.  That the entire “game” is not just flipped in the sense of “you thought this person should be the king, but really it was a different person who should be the king” -- the game itself is illegitimate, and destructive, and fundamentally absurd, a bunch of assholes wreaking limitless chaos out of their fixed ideas about cosmic order, which are, every single one of them, wildly wrong.

It happens on two prongs simultaneously -- first, the Iron Throne doesn’t matter because *whoever* is “in power” is immediately hamstrung.  They can’t actually do anything of any significance, because they’re 100% occupied from the moment they step into the bullseye with fending off eight hundred other assholes who want to be king of the hill, so no succession in the entire series can happen in an “orderly” or “legitimate” way -- every one of them is bedeviled by uprisings and invasions and civil wars and assassination attempts and legal challenges, and the point is that this will continue to happen forever, while the world just kind of trudges on.  The second arm of IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER is the long game, because Winter Is Coming, and not one person on the entire planet is remotely prepared to put their personal bullshit aside in order to figure out what to do with an ice zombie invasion.  People are just going to keep offing each other for imaginary honors and getting knocked off in their turn, and one day they’ll wake up and realize they rule a world that’s uninhabitable and NONE OF IT FUCKING MATTERED.

That was the point of ASOIAF to my reading, and that’s what I loved about it.  Its “realism” was that it drilled down hard into the brutal reality that we saturate ourselves in stories about how great it’s going to be when the Good Leader is on the throne at last, but *that’s never going to happen,* because leaders are regular humans who run the gamut between “pretty all right” and “just the fucking worst,” but they change pretty regularly, and waiting for the Good Leader to fix it all is a sucker’s game anyway, because people don’t just show up and save the world and establish The Good Times and then the story is over.  That’s *not a real thing,* and maybe we should tell at least the occasional story that doesn’t end that way, so we won’t all be so goddamn obsessed with pinning our hopes on saviors who don’t pan out.

The thing is...I don’t know how you end a story like that.  I more than a little bit suspect that GRRM also does not know how you end a story like that.  When the whole point is that politics is an endless game with no real winners and that even the putative winners aren’t really capable of stopping the tides of history, when do you ring the curtain down?  I actually have no idea.

What I was not hoping for was a final season that is entirely, uncritically, about making sure we all feel good about who gets to be kings and queens and who doesn’t.  That -- DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.  I mean, I almost love having Bran take the throne, because there’s this weird subtextual kind of “lol, who cares, have that guy do it I guess” baked into the meaninglessness of Bran, who doesn’t want anything or, mostly, even feel anything.  But all the literal and figurative chair-shuffling at the end of the episode about who’s going to serve on the council and who’s in charge of what, I just....  It seems like the writers really thought that was the payoff.  That what we all needed to know about the Game of Thrones is who ends up winning it.

And that’s such a baldly, drastically, jaw-droppingly bad payoff for the ASOIAF that I loved.  The suggestion that the realm will be brought to some kind of peace now that the Correct, Better Dynasty is enthroned in the allied Six Kingdoms/North is completely ass backwards from the entire point of the books.  Winter coming and going harmlessly, the Others (White Walkers, whatever) dispatched in one single-night battle, just betrays the source material so audaciously that it feels like it had to be deliberate.  That was the whole goddamn story!  That Winter Was Coming!!!!!  And then the show just -- didn’t do that, and instead built its climax around A Good Leader dispatching A Bad Leader, whereby the realm is saved, yay.

Only the point was that power operates systemically, and power itself takes in the people who would wield it, and power replicates itself in the forms that are familiar, and that the problem isn’t that we need to keep searching for the Rightful King, because *power doesn’t suddenly become benevolent when it’s invested in someone with good intentions.*  I know there are still people who will argue with me about that, and -- I mean, fine, that’s a matter of differing political philosophies, but Team Great Man Theory of History can rest assured that basically every other epic story will back up their worldview, because that worldview makes for better, more satisfying stories.

ASOIAF was written for the rest of us.  It was a big, rich, plotty, absorbing epic story about a world where people were only human and things were only ever going to get put right to the degree that the world has ever been put right, which is...not especially.  But still, the characters were *human,* and what they chose to do mattered.  At least, it mattered to exactly whichever degree you personally believe that the things people choose to do matter, and it kind of challenged you to answer that question for yourself: if you knew you were never going to win the game and never going to save the world, because it’s not that kind of a world, what would you do?  Would you still try to be a hero?  Would you take the world for everything you could get?  Would you just keep your damn head down?  Would you just chase what you loved instead of the fate of nations?  Would you try all those things at different times, as seemed right to you in the moment, and then live with the consequences?

I don’t know how the hell you make that into a tv show, or if it’s even remotely possible.  I just know that the show they made needed an ending, and the one they went with just felt a lot like every book I’ve ever read in my life *except* these books.  Which might have been inevitable from the beginning, but it’s still disappointing.

#got #long post

[thesinglesjukebox]

LIL NAS X - OLD TOWN ROAD

[6.73]

We're gonna bluuuurb til we can't no more...

Katie Gill: The problem with "Old Town Road" is that it's more interesting as a thinkpiece than an actual song. The song charting, then being excluded, from the Billboard Country Music charts opens so many questions that can't be answered in one sitting. Is this a further example of the well-documented racism in country music? Or is this just a freak accident hick-hop song that vaulted it's way out of the depths of subgenre hell? Is a twangy voice and references to horses enough to make a song "country"? Does the presence of Billy Ray Cyrus in a remix that dropped on Friday legitimize the song's credentials or just make them worse? Where was all this controversy when "Meant To Be," an honest-to-god pop song, was holding steady on the charts? There are so many questions and so many points of conversation that spring out from this song, that it's a pity "Old Town Road" itself is just okay. Everything about it screams "filler track for the SoundCloud page," from the length to the trap beats to the aggressively mediocre lyrics. The song didn't even chart on it's own merits: it charted because it's used in a TikTok meme! This is like if "We Are Number One" or "No Mercy" made their way to the top of the iTunes charts and people decided to have a conversation about the limits of genre based on those charting. I'm a little annoyed, because the conversation around "Old Town Road" is something that country music should be having... but just not around "Old Town Road." [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There are essays upon essays to be written about "Old Town Road" as a prism for the racial divides that have served as undergirding for the modern American genre system since the 1930s division between "hillbilly" and "race" records. It's the perfect hunk of think-piece fodder: a simple core question -- is it country? -- that can spiral out to all corners of culture until the song itself is obscured. So let's focus on the song, instead. Because beyond all world-historical significance, "Old Town Road" fucking bangs. It's all in the bait and switch of that intro -- banjos and horns plunking away until Lil Nas X's triumphant "YEAAAH" (second this decade only to Fetty Wap) drops and the beat comes in. It's a joke until it's not -- maybe you came in from the Red Dead Redemption 2 video, or from a friend of yours talking about the hilarious country trap song, or from the artist's own Twitter, which is more Meech On Mars than Meek Mill, but no matter the source, you'll find that "Old Town Road" has its way of looping into your brain, all drawls and boasts and banjos. It's meme rap, but much like prior iterations of this joke ("Like a Farmer"), Lil Nas X fully and deeply commits -- he doesn't drop the pretense for a single line, keeping the track short enough to not outlive its welcome while still exploring its weird conceit to its fullest. Yet even in its jokey vibe there's some actual pathos -- no matter how put on, the lonesome cowboy sorrow of Lil Nas X's declaration that he'll "ride till [he] can't no more" feels genuine. "Old Town Road" is everything at once, the implosion of late teens culture into one undeniable moment. [10]

David Moore: So here's a true gem of a novelty song -- a phrase I use with both intention and respect; I grew up in a Dementoid household -- that could launch a thousand thinkpieces about hip-hop, country, class, the object and subject of jokes, whether to call something a joke at all, you name it. But what I keep returning to is the economy of it, its simplicity, how there is so much in so little, the way that someone on the outside can grok things inaccessible to the insiders, maybe by accident or by studious observation and a fresh perspective, the way music can be a multiverse, characters from one world complicating or clarifying or confusing the limits of another in a mutually provocative way. I'm not a backstory guy, which is to say I'm not a research guy, which is to say I'm either intuitive or lazy or both, so I don't have any clue where this came from, but I know magic when I hear it, I know what it sounds like when you discover, or simply stumble into by accident, the path beyond the bounds of territory you presumed exhausted, territory that can always get bigger, always invite whole new parties to the party. It's a real party party; you can get in. [10]

Katherine St Asaph: "Old Town Road" is the "Starships" of 2019: a song that objectively is not great, but will be called great for the understandable reason that liking or disliking it now unavoidably entails choosing the right or wrong side. This tends to lead to hand-waving freakoutery about critics not talking about the music, man, but once The Discourse is out in the world, it becomes a real and critical part of the song's existence; not talking about Billboard punting "Old Town Road" would be like talking about "Not Ready to Make Nice" as an workaday country song. The problem is not quite as simple as "the Billboard charts don't want black artists," an argument with historical precedent but now doomed to fail: clearly, people like Kane Brown and Darius Rucker and Mickey Guyton (who's left off lists like this, somehow) have hits. It's more about respectability politics. Traditionalists hate the idea of memes, social media, and perceived line-cutting, all of which means they'll hate a song born not of the Nashville and former-fraternity-bro scene, but via TikTok and stan Twitter. But what they really, really hate is rap and anything that sounds like a gateway to rap; like if they tolerate this Cardi B will be next. Country radio, for the past decade or two, has been pop radio with all the blatant rap signifiers removed; its songs aren't about cowboys or horses but suburban WASP life. Of course, double standards abound. Talking about lean is out; talking about bingeing beer is fine. "Bull riding and boobies" isn't OK because it's from a guy called Lil Nas X -- I honestly think people would whine less if this exact song was credited to "Montero Hill" -- but "I got a girl, her name's Sheila, she goes batshit on tequila" is OK because it's from a guy called Jake Owen, and "Look What God Gave Her" is OK because it hides its ogling of boobies behind plausibly deniable God talk. Fortunately "Old Town Road" is better than "Starships" -- the NIN sample is inspired, and the hook is evocative and sticky. (It fucks with authenticity politics, too -- Lil Nas X wrote his own song, but the big corporate country artists often don't.) Its main problem is that it's slight: a meme that doesn't overstay past the punchline, a song that never quite gets to song size. [5]

Thomas Inskeep: Sampling Nine Inch Nails' "34 Ghosts IV" to (help) create a western motif is hands-down brilliant, so huge thumbs-up for that. Lyrically, this is pretty empty, a bunch of western clichés strung together -- but then again, the same can be said of plenty of Big & Rich songs. Split the score down the middle, accordingly. [5]

Scott Mildenhall: But surely this is how country music should sound? Lil Nas X has performed alchemy in combining two generic styles into something inspiring, flipping the meaning of "pony and trap" on its head. The mechanical sound of trap is rusted into the mechanical sound of fixing a combine, or at least pretending that is something you might do, and such performance is fun for all the family. Well, unless you're an American farming family tired of stereotypes anyway. [7]

Stephen Eisermann: Non country (trap) beat with subtle country instrumentation? Sounds like much of country radio, only way better! [7]

Nortey Dowuona: A burning, humming bass girds under sticklike banjos as Lil Nas X rides into town to water his horse and head back out onto the open road. [5]

Alex Clifton: I spent the weekend re-enacting this scene from Easy A with this song, so it's safe to say I like it. I especially love the "horse"/"Porsche" line, which is unexpected and amazing. [7]

Alfred Soto: The usual genre conversations threaten to smother analysis. If Lil Nas X can use trap drums, then why can't Sam Hunt use loops? Silly. (Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes: "The Constitution is what the judges say it is"). The Kanye allusion ("Y'all can't tell me nuthin'") works extra-diagetically. An assemblage of modest, discrete charms held together by a solid performance at its center -- nothing more. I await the Future-Frank Liddell collab. [5]

Edward Okulicz: It's affectionate and actually quite deferential in its treatment of its parent genres. Crossovers like this have been hinted at, and gestured towards in the other direction quite a bit of late (country artists affecting hip-hop, less so the latter), and the two genres have more in common than the caricatures of the sorts of people who are supposed to listen to them do. Of course, I mean those genres as they exist today, and not in the warped imaginations of purists. You can see why kids have latched on, and it's easy to snarl at Big Chart for sticking their oar in. The kids are right; artists control the means of production and radio and chart compilers can accept that they aren't the tastemakers, and attempts to force their tastes down other people's throats will lead to a backlash. This is not a brilliant song but it's a picture of one of many potential musical futures and, at two minutes, the perfect length too. The right response is to smile, and "Old Town Road" makes it easy to smile -- it's an earworm. Sure, it doesn't give me the same immediate feeling of fuck!!! this is the best that I got when I first heard that version of Bubba Sparxxx's "Comin' Round" but country music survived "Honey, I'm Good" and it will survive this. It might well thrive. [6]

Joshua Copperman: I recently found out that I have a moderate Vitamin D deficiency, but looking up the song everyone was talking about and hearing this basically confirmed that I should go outside more often. There are definitely things to talk about: it's the logical conclusion to "I listen to everything except country and rap" jokes when the inverse has taken over the Hot 100, and it's a song that's set to hit number one because everyone is incredulous that it exists at all -- with a Billy Ray Cyrus remix to boot. The conversations about what makes a song "country" are all fascinating, but it's hard to fully enjoy pieces about something that, as an actual song, is so fundamentally empty. The Nine Inch Nails sample is interesting, but like everything else, more intriguing in theory than execution. This will wind up on every site's "best of 2019" lists, and then in ten years people will snark on how a song with "My life is a movie/Bullridin' and boobies" was so critically acclaimed. As a meme/discourse lightning rod, it's an [8], as a how-to guide for late-2010s fame, it's a [10], but there's little appeal in a vacuum. Adding a bonus point, because music has never existed in a vacuum anyway. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: Remember when the internet was still described as a realm of lawless and limitless potential, when open source could be touted as revolutionary praxis and "free flow of information" was a sacred utterance? Now one of the key political questions is whether private companies should be doing more to banish online rulebreakers or whether the federal government should step in to delimit what those rules are. Whichever side ends up winning, it's clear that the wide open spaces of the Frontier Internet are rapidly facing enclosure. Montero Hill learned this the hard way when his @nasmaraj account was suspended by Twitter as part of its crackdown against spam-based virality. While Tweetdeckers are nobody's martyrs, it's a minor tragedy every time an account with that many followers and that much influence gets shunted off to the broken-link stacks of the Wayback Machine. Rules must be laid down, but their enforcement always entails loss -- the bittersweet triumph of civilization over nature that forms the backbone of every classic Western. Maybe Hill/nasmaraj/Lil Nas X had this loss in mind when writing the jauntily defiant lyrics of "Old Town Road." Maybe he was just riding the microtrends of the moment like he was before. Still, this particular microtrend -- the reappropriation of cowboy imagery by non-white Americans -- feels too weighty to be reduced to mere aesthetics. Turner's Frontier Thesis may have been racially blinkered to the extreme, but the myths and yearnings it spawned can never die; they just get democratized. So it makes sense that young Americans, even those who don't know who John Wayne is, would subconsciously reach out for the rural, the rustic, the rugged and free, just as we feel the global frontiers closing all around us. Our foreign policy elites hold endless panel talks about "maintaining power projection" and "winning the AI race," but most normal people don't care about that stuff. We're all secretly waiting for China to take over like in our cyberpunk stories, so we can drop all the pressures of being the Indispensable Nation and just feast off our legacy like post-imperial Britain. And what is that legacy? It's rock, it's country, it's hip hop, it's "Wrangler on my booty," it's all the vulgar mongrelisms that force our post-ironic white nationalists to adopt Old Europe as their lodestar. In short, it's "Old Town Road." We're gonna ride this horse 'til we can't no more, we're gonna reify these myths 'til we can't no more, because when the empire is gone, the myths are all we have. (Oh, and the Billy Ray remix is a [10]. Obviously.) [9]

Jonathan Bradley: People suppose that genre exists to delineate a set of sounds, and while it does do that, it depends even more on its ability to build, define, and speak for communities. The question of whether "Old Town Road" is a country song or not is in some ways easily resolved: country music showed no interest in Lil Nas X -- or at least not until Billy Ray Cyrus noticed an opportune moment to complicate expectations and grab headlines -- and so Lil Nas X's song was not country. Even taking into account its sound and subject matter, his hit is best understood as a burlesque on country music, one that parodies and exaggerates the genre's motifs and themes for heightened effect. The kids on TikTok, who turned the long-gone lonesome blues of the song's tumbleweed hook into viral content, understand this intuitively: they use the incongruity that clarifies at the beat drop as an opportunity to engage in caricature and costume. And while Lil Nas X, a huckster and a trendspotter before he was a pop star, has been happy to embrace the yee-haw mantle that has been bestowed upon him, his song is a familiar rap exercise in play and extended metaphor. The Shop Boyz did much the same thing with "Party Like a Rock Star" and it would be obtuse to suppose that was a rock song. And yet, as the country historian Bill C. Malone has written, country since its inception has attracted fans "because of its presumed Southern traits, whether romantically or negatively expressed"; there has always been a bit of schtick to this sound. I wondered when we reviewed Trixie Mattel whether country is, on some level, intrinsically camp, and it's tough to declare definitively that Lil Nas X's bold hick strokes are that much more stylized than Jake Owen's performance of small town ordinariness. And just as a country music based on cohesive community rather than sound has found itself broad enough to encompass northern hair metal, Auto-Tuned club stomps, and Ludacris, the gate-keeping involved in keeping Lil Nas X out begins to look suspicious. After all, the first song to debut on Billboard's Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart, the predecessor to today's Hot Country Songs, was "Pistol Packin' Mama," a hillbilly goof by the decidedly uncountry combination of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. As Malone has written, "While the commercial fraternity thought mainly of profits, the recording men, radio executives, publicists, promoters, ad men, sponsors, and booking agents who dealt with folk music also readily manipulated public perceptions in order to sell their products." One of the ways they did that was to tap into already mythological figures of American individualism like the cowboy, who is, after all, a creature of the west and not the South. "The respective visions of cowboy and western life drew far more from popular culture and myth ... than they did from reality," Malone writes of the early country singers who embraced cowboy personae; in some ways Lil Nas X's purloining of meme interest in that same culture places him within a rich country heritage. After all, when in popular entertainment has shameless self-promotion not been part of the aspirant's trade? It does matter how cultural communities react to the music made in their name, but when certain people are adjudicated not fit for club membership, it is worth asking why. Country's culture, I said recently, is "one that's implicitly but not definitely Southern, implicitly but not definitely rural, and implicitly but not definitely white," and it's easy to see how Lil Nas X doesn't fit into that. Country music's racism isn't unique to the genre -- the historical hegemonies of punk and indie rock are at least as determinedly white -- but it is particularly visible. Country is racist like the South is racist like America is racist. Lil Nas X disrupts that settlement, helping us imagine a country music that genuinely encompasses the music of the American South -- a genre that has space for "This is How We Roll" and Miranda Lambert, Lil Boosie and Young Thug, "Formation" and Juvenile, and perhaps even Norteño and banda sounds. That would be, however, not only a far different country music to what we know today, but the music of a far different America. [7]

Iris Xie: Yeet haw! Aside from the great pleasure I've had in showing this to my friends, (Me, two weeks ago: "Have you heard this country trap song???" My friends, this week: "Iris, that song you're talking about now has Billy Ray Cyrus on it??") and either slinging back and forth memey references, engaging in discussions on the state of white supremacy in the music industry while also debating about the song's merit, or hearing my friends start singing "can't nobody tell me nothing..." very quietly at any moment and I can't help but join in -- it's all been very fun. Aside from making plans to play "Old Town Road" on my next country road drive to Costco, something that's occurred to me is that this is a song boosted by the status and calamity of its metanarrative. We could always use more discussions of the double standards that Black and POC artists face in the industry when it comes to genres and participating in it, and I'm honestly glad Lil Nas X just made something that was fun and made sense to him, even if "Old Town Road" doesn't stray too much from the conventions of both trap and country, resulting in a well-balanced mashup that sounds more safe than surprising to me, but is serene in its confidence nevertheless. On the flipside of that genre-mashing, Miley wishes and is probably very jealous of her father now for hopping onto this train, lest we forget about all of her cultural appropriation attempts. But for the song itself, those long, relaxed drawls and the imagery of riding a horse to the trap beat -- why not? We live in weird times now, Black people's contributions to country music were erased, and it's kind of a relaxing song. Also, I'm a fan of the "Can't nobody tell me nothing" lyric, which has become an unintentionally defiant line in the face of all the backlash, resulting in a message to rally around. Now excuse me, as I text my friends that "I'm gonna take my horse down to the old town road." [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Lil Nas X #country #pop #music #music review #writing

[lucywithlupus]

Top 4 Bad & Good Things about my Body/ Top 4 Cosas Malas & Buenas de mi Cuerpo

Let's get real: arthritis sucks. It sucks incredibly hard. It sucks so bad not even all of the straws in this planet (serious issue) could suck as terribly as receiving the sad news that you suffer from a rheumatic condition.     And because this condition is that terrible, it can lead your mind, heart, and soul to constantly attack your body with negative feelings, perceptions, and emotions. It is like your mind cannot stop concentrating about how not good your body is, how it fails to do the smallest things, or how it is not doing the things you ask it to do.    The Mental Health Surveys published in 2008 their results on mental disorders among persons with arthritis. With a sample of 10 641 adults (wow!), with 78% response rate in an audience with 23% reporting at least one medical disorder in the past 12 months, they clearly showed that these disorders and mental illnesses go hand in hand. About 35% of people with a mental health disorder did seek treatment, while more than half did not even consider the idea.    These were their conclusions:

"The high rate of not consulting among those with disability and comorbidity is an important public health problem. As Australia has a universal health insurance scheme, the barriers to effective care must be patient knowledge and physician competence."    Aka there is a LOT of work to do. A lot.        Another study by SAGE Journals said first what was said by The Mental Health Surveys in 2005, only focusing on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) About 150 participants, with varying duration of time since diagnosed, and the results were the following:         1. Perceiving illness as that something closest to you worsened depression and overall quality of life.     2. Remaining calm actually worked on those recently diagnosed:

"Optimism related to lower pain in early and intermediate RA. Social support related to lower fatigue in established RA. Indications for interventions targeted by disease duration are discussed."    Sometimes, when the years go by and your good ol' pal arthritis has been sitting in your couch for way too long, it can really get heavy on your shoulders. So much to do, so many things to see and experience, only to be dragged down by your frenemy right there *aggressively stares at chair*.    But it does not have to be this complicated. Your body and your mind are one and the same, they do not have to hate each other, or disconnect from one another in a way that actually will strip away all control from your hands. Your mind and body should not have fights every two seconds, they are both just trying their damn hardest to get by, and you know that. I know that. Your loved ones know that.    So let's do it for them, for you and me, but most importantly, you.    Without further ado, here we go! Top 4 Bad and Good Things about my Body with Arthritis.    

   Bad Thing 1: My body is weak

This used to be my mantra for six years of my life. I used to play this on repeat in my head like the hottest new summer mixtape. I already had enough with high school, trying to get unimaginable perfect grades and carrying the burden of being told every day that I was Einstein or something and I could achieve those grades if I wanted to.

The problem is that I wanted to, but know I know I never did. Does that make sense?

Let's be real. What kid likes to be sat down, all day, staring at colorful post its and trying to remember those English quotes for a massive surprise essay next week? No one! Not even me now, even though I am an adult. Kinda.

I just dreamed of getting to university, the days of the present shifting by while I had my eyes on the prize. At least I managed to get a spot on a university I love and enjoy with all my heart.

But even at arrival, I felt weak. Felt weak that I could not sit in my lecture hall comfortably for an hour. Felt weak because I had to take a nap in the afternoon after a three-hour lab. Felt weak because I could not finish that deadline because my knees hurt way too much to sit down and type away.

Feeling weak is normal, but we need to know that we cannot do everything. Nothing in life is free, but also it does not mean we do not take a break every now and then to make sure our body is taken care of. You cannot achieve what you want without rest. Your body will blow up! Poof!

Do not do that to yourself. Please.

Good Thing 1: My body is strong

Think of the strongest person you know. It's probably its Dwayne the Rock Johnson so let's stick with him.

Dwayne is a huge person. His arms are probably bigger than my ribcage, and his ribcage is probably bigger than my entire body. He trains a lot, eats more than that and is always ready to sing in the next Disney Movie, kick butt in the next action feature or yell in Moati dancing with a bunch of ten-year-old football players (pls do google this. It is hilarious.)

His life is pretty incredible, but that does not mean he did not have his up and downs. His childhood was pretty intense, as he was a major athlete and had to keep up with the legacy of wrestling legends established by his grandfather.

But this 101 on Dwayne's life isn't about him, it's about you! Look at you! You are the Rock too!

You managed to be told you have a condition that may probably never leave you and you successfully did not attempt to quit your life. You basically babysit your body all day, every day, trying to give it what it needs and avoid what it does not. You made and will make sacrifices to make sure you and those with you are ok, under any circumstance.

We get up every morning, in stinging pain, attempting to fling our bodies out of bed and waddle to the bathroom, take a shower, change clothes, brush our teeth, stuff our aching feet into some shoes and get out that door because we know we would go mad if we did not fight this every day. We know that if we did not go through that hassle every day and showed arthritis who's boss, our minds would collapse, we would lose the fight.

So keep fighting.

Bad Thing 2: My body is weird

Needless to say, a typical human body does not wreck itself everytime it goes up the stairs (remember kids: the first step is always the hardest). It is simply not the way it was designed to function, simple biology. Now, that does not mean your body is plain vanilla, but it also does not mean your body is an abomination like the ones in horror movies- or the ones who barely make it through horror movies.

My body is not weird. Period. I already spoke about how people are so legitimately shocked that I can properly function like the productive adult that I am, let alone those who just disapprove of me being me in public. Well, too bad Susan, I am here and so is my medical condition! I can't press the off button today thank you very much.

Your body can do so many amazing things. It can take care of itself and others. It can stump to the places you need to be in, or walk in good days, or run in the best days. It can do so many wonderful things, but you have to stop telling yourself that you are the odd one out. Anyone with a slight glimpse of intelligence will not care that you have to take your pills at this exact time, or that you have to sit down and rest for a while.

Keep those people close, but your enemies closer. No enemies, but confused strangers. Teach them about your condition, educate the public on what it is and how they can actually help us get by (aka this blog!).

Good Thing 2: My body is interesting

Maybe its because I am studying for a degree in science, but natural curiosity is never as bad as some people may think. Your body actually is fascinating to many doctors and field experts out there! The way it behaves and its mysterious ways are like an elegant puzzle, an enigma for them to observe and somehow complete.

Now, don't sell yourself to science, unless you really want to. Find money elsewhere.

I was always questioning why my body behaved this way until I realized the way I felt, when I felt it and how I felt it was pretty consistent, almost clock-like. The way our body operates is highly interesting, investigating on the subject won't blow your mind, but it may lead you to ask a question or two as to why your body is doing this to itself.

Maybe googling or reading a few articles some things will help you share your journey with others. Soon I will teach you the best ways to research for your own condition in a new post!

Just close your eyes for a moment, and focus on every single part of your body, one by one. Think about one good thing they did today: your feet took you to have breakfast, your hands held your favorite book, your eyes watched a beautiful movie today, your mouth helped you eat lunch, etc.

Any insignificant action that your body does is amazing and should be celebrated. Treat yourself for that!

Bad Thing 3: My body is ugly

Ugly duckling never felt so ugly. Now she did not only had to worry about her thick legs that could not fit inside those terribly small skinny jeans or that small bump in her stomach where, surprise surprise, but organs are also supposed to be in. Suddenly, what little body confidence she had taken a whole new spin: her body was now also not cute in other ways. Like abnormally inflated joints, finger stuck in a claw-like fashion, or the constant weight gain and loss I had during my experience with arthritis due to the lack of exercise.

Arthritis and other rheumatic conditions make yourself feel terrible about your appearance. Taking care of your looks sometimes is not a priority anymore. It can even be a challenge: you have to pick outfits, wear uncomfortable shoes, not have enough space in your purse or pockets (women pockets are the worst!period!) to carry your medicine around. Makeup can sometimes even be harsh on your skin when you get redness, or your hair may fall out because of the medication.

Let's not talk about shaving. Avoid for our own good.  

But everyone deserves to feel cute, at least once in a while. Now I really don't care what they tell me: I can look a mess but feel beautiful, every single day. Because my body is my home, it takes care of me, and I take care of it. It deserves pampering and I will provide it every now and then.

Good Thing 3: My body is beautiful

Now, let's repeat the exercise we just did, now open your eyes. Look at yourself in the mirror, take in all that you are, every curve, every little detail, and imperfection. Say one nice thing about it all. Look at those eyes! Look at that hair! So stylish! Look at those shoulders! So strong! And so on.

No one's body is perfect, and trying it to make it magazine ready all day is not worth it. But please have the chance to try new things, look for new clothes (or used ones) that make you feel good, beautiful and confident all day!

So if you see a cute dress that you like and you can afford it, go for it! You will slay whatever place you will wear it to. Did you saw a nice shirt on sale? Buy it! You will look so cool, so fly.

Hint: there will also be a new post coming about tips and tricks on how to buy and wear clothes when you have arthritis. Struggling with that zipper every morning is a major problem! Stop!

Bad Thing 4: My body will never heal

   As already discussed, no one really knows why arthritis is a thing, and thus, no one knows how it leaves and why. Maybe it has to do with stress. Perhaps it has something to do with environmental conditions or lifestyle. Who knows.

But that does not mean you lose hope that easily. Sure, some of us have had our condition for five, ten, even thirty years, and it still there. But arthritis' place in our bodies is not permanent, I swear on Yuval Harari (aka one of my favorite authors of all time).

You can bet all you want that when you least expect it, this uninvited acquaintance will be poofed off, and free you shall be at last. Just make sure you are working for it: be kind to yourself, take your meds, eat healthy (at least try), do some exercise, educate yourself and others, help out those in need, etc.

Good Thing 4: My body will get better

It will, and it is. Yas.

I sometimes I feel challenged to balance my priorities and make sure I am not overworking myself when trying to get better. The irony of it all: we sometimes work too hard in trying to get better sometimes. We read a lot, research to no end. We try so many different diets, hoping one will be the one to cure us at last, we go to so many different treatments, yoga sessions, detox classes, and God knows what more.

Being excited about staying healthy is important, a good solid start. But do not go crazy trying to find a cure that may not even be accessible to you at stores or detox juices. Instead, trust your body. It knows what it's doing, most of the time. It will heal itself in the only way it knows how to: eating, sleeping, resting, drinking water,  and asking for stuff. Lots of stuff. Another hint: new post on how to make a survival kit soon!

Getting better can sometimes feel like a rollercoaster: sometimes we are up, sometimes we fall head first 20 feet up in the air towards the solid ground. Gravity is harsh, man.

But you know what I a trying to say. Things will not always be easy, and sometimes you will not be able to control everything or know what to do. That's why you have to ask for help. From your parents, your caretakes, your doctors and your friends. Build a support circle around you so you always know someone always has your back, sometimes literally.

Arthritis is no piece of cake, and other rheumatic disorders are not either. They are tasks for us to fulfill, but we are not bad. We are not sick. We are not ugly. And we definitely are not going to sit here and take it. Because we have enough things to worry about, and we could not care less about what you or others have to say about our progress. We know our worth, we appreciate ourselves and celebrate our bodies in the best way we can: by treating it right, with respect, dignity, love, and courage.

Love you so you can love. See you around!

Also, I would love to share with your guys this lovely group of families in Kampala with children with disabilities at Ndagire Ritah @ritandagire76 on Instagram. Please copy and paste their username and say hi! Drop a donation if you can! It's for a great cause!

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Seamos sinceros: la artritis apesta. Increíblemente. Es tan mala que ni siquiera todas las cañitas del mundo (problema bastante serio) no podrían igualarse a recibir la triste noticia de que tu sufres de artritis reumatoide.

Y por que esta condición es tan horrible, puede convencer a tu mente, corazón y espíritu de atacar a tu cuerpo con pensamientos negativos, percepciones falsas y emociones dañinas. Es como si tu mente no puede dejar de concentrarse en todo lo malo que tu cuerpo es, todas las fallas que comete, incluso en las quehaceres más pequeños, o cómo no está logrando las cosas que tu le pides que haga.The Mental Health Surveys publicó en el 2008 sus resultados en la relación que existe entre las enfermedades mentales y la artritis. Con 10 641 sujetos adultos puestos a prueba (wow!) y una tasa de respuesta del 78%, el estudio involucró casi 2,500 personas discapacitadas. Los resultados demostraron que los desórdenes reumatológicos y las enfermedades mentales van de mano en mano. Casi 35% de las personas que padecían de una enfermedad mental buscaron tratamientos, mientras que más de la mitas ni siquiera consideró la idea de hacerlo.

Y estas fueron sus conclusiones:  

" El alto índice de falta de tratamiento mental en aquellos que sufren de discapacidad y comorbilidad es un problema de salud pública. Ya que Australia tiene un esquema universal de seguros médicos, las barreras que previenen cuidado efectivo deben ser el conocimiento del paciente acerca de posibles tratamientos y la competencia del médico tratante."

En otras palabras, hay mucho que hacer. MUCHO. Demasiado.

Otro estudio por SAGE journals anticipó en 2005 lo dicho por The Mental Health Surveys, solo enfocándose en la artritis reumatoide (RA). Casi 150 participantes, quienes padecían de artritis por variadas duraciones de tiempo. Los resultados fueron los siguientes.

Percibir la enfermedad como lo más cercano a tu ser puede empeorar la depresión y calidad de vida.

Conservar la calma tuvo, en efecto, un resultado positivo en aquellos que acababan de ser diagnosticados.

"El optimismo mejoró el dolor secundario  en artritis reumatoide de duración temprana y intermedia. Indicaciones de intervenciones dirigidas a la duración de la enfermedad fueron discutidas."

A veces, cuando los años pasan y tu vieja amiga artritis estuvo sentada en tu sillón por mucho tiempo, en serio puede convertirse en una carga pesada. Tanto que hacer, tantas cosas que ver y experimentar, solo para ser empujada por tu amiga-enemiga, que siempre está justo ahí *miro mi silla*

Pero no tiene que ser tan complicado. Tu cuerpo y tu mente son tal para cual, fulano y mengano no tienen que odiarse, o desconectarse de una manera que quitaría todo el control de tus manos. Tu mente y cuerpo no deberían pelear cada dos segundos, solo están tratando de conseguir el mismo objetivo: trabajar super duro para sobrevivir, y eso ya lo sabías. Yo lo sabía. Tus seres queridos también lo sabían.Así que hagámoslo por ellos, por tu y yo. Pero sobre todo, hazlo por ti.Ahora sin más preámbulos, aquí vamos! Top 4 Cosas Malas y Buenas de Mi Cuerpo.   Cosa Mala 1: Mi cuerpo es débil

Este solía ser mi mantra por seis años de mi vida. Solía repetir esto en mi cabeza como esas canciones pop que salen en verano. Ya tenía suficientes líos con la secundaria, tratando de sacar notas inimaginables y perfectas y cargar la responsabilidad de ser vista como Einstein o algo por el estilo. Todo el mundo me decía que yo podía sacar la nota que quisiera sin esfuerzo alguno.

El problema es que yo sí mi esforzaba, pero nunca quise hacerlo. Se entiende?

Seamos honestos con nosotros mismos. A qué niño le gusta estar sentado todo el dia, mirando post its de colores con datos para el siguiente ensayo sorpresa de Inglés la próxima semana? Ninguno! Ni siquiera yo ahora quiero hacer eso, incluso si soy una adulta. Casi.

Yo solo soñaba con entrar a la universidad, los días del presente un abrir y cerrar de ojos mientras yo tenía la mirada fija en la línea de llegada. Al menos logre un lugar en una universidad que yo a mi y disfruto con todo mi corazón.

Pero incluso al llegar, me sentía débil. Débil porque no podía sentarme en mi salón de audiencias cómodamente por más de una hora. Débil porque debía tomar una siesta en la tarde después de un laboratorio de tres horas. Débil porque no podía entregar el trabajo por que mis rodillas me dolían demasiado para sentarme en mi escritorio y prender mi computadora.   No te hagas eso a ti mismo. Por favor.

Cosa Buena 1: Mi cuerpo es fuerte

Piensa en la persona más fuerte que conoces. Probablemente es Dwayne the Rock Johnson así que utilicemoslo de ejemplo.

Dwayne es una persona enorme. Sus brazos son probablemente más grandes que mi pecho, y su pecho es probablemente más grande que mi cuerpo. El entrena un montón, come más que eso y siempre está listo para cantar en la siguiente película de Disney, pegarle a alguien en el siguiente blockbuster de acción o gritar en un baile Haka junto a grupo de niñas de diez años en un partido de football (por favor busquen eso. Es divertidisimo.)

Su vida es muy increíble, pero eso no significa que no tenga sus altibajos. Su infancia fue bastante intensa, pues esa un atleta profesional desde muy chico y siempre trató de mantener el legado de leyendas boxeadoras establecido por su abuelo.

Pero este 101 en la vida de Dwayne no se trata de él. Se trata de ti! Mírate! Tú también eres como La Roca!Tu lograste soportar que te dijeran que tienes una condición que quizá nunca te abandone y victoriosamente no tratarse de terminar tu vida. Tu básicamente de cuidas cual bebé todo el dia, todos los días, esforzándote para darle a tu cuerpo lo que necesita y evitar lo que no necesita. Tu haces y harás los sacrificios necesarios para asegurarte que tu y los que amas están seguros, bajo cualquier circunstancia.

Nos levantamos cada mañana, en dolor agudo, tratando de aventar nuestros cuerpos fuera de la cama y cojear hasta el baño, ducharse, cambiarse de ropa, lavarse los dientes, encajar nuestros pies dolidos en un par de zapatillas y salir por esa puerta por que sabemos que perderíamos la cabeza si no luchamos esta condición todos los días. Sabemos claramente que si no nos tomáramos la molestia de hacer todo eso en la mañana y no le mostráramos a la artritis quien manda, nuestras mentes colapsaría y perderíamos la batalla.Así que sigue luchando.

Cosa Mala 2: Mi cuerpo es raro

No hace falta decir que el típico cuerpo humano usualmente no se destruye a sí mismo cada vez que tratas de subir las escaleras (recuerden amigos: el primer paso siempre es el más difícil). Tu cuerpo simplemente no está diseñado para funcionar de esa manera, biología básica. Ahora, eso no significa que tu cuerpo sea tan básico como el pan blanco, pero tampoco significa que tu cuerpo es una abominación como las que salen en las películas de horror- o los que a las re justas sobreviven la película.

Mi cuerpo no es raro. Punto. Ya hablé de las personas que siempre se encuentran tan sorprendidas que yo puedo funcionar como la mujer productiva que soy, y también de aquellos que me miran con desaprobación en público. Bueno, que pena Susan, estoy aquí y también lo está mi condición médica! No pude apretar el botón de apagado hoy, muchas gracias.

Tu cuerpo puede hacer tantas cosas maravillosas. Puede cuidarse y a otros. Puede lentamente dirigirse a los lugares en los que tu debes estar, o caminar hacia ellos en los días buenos, o correr incluso en los días súper buenos. Puede hacer tantas cosas maravillosas, pero tienes que dejar de nombrarte a ti mismo la oveja negra. Cualquiera con poco de inteligencia no le importará que tienes que tomar tus pastillas a esta hora exacta, o que tienes que sentarse un rato de descansar.

Ten a tus amigos cerca, pero a tu enemigos más cerca. No enemigos, pero extraños confundidos. Enséñales a cerca de tu condición, educa al público de qué es la artritis y cómo nos pueden ayudar en el dia a dia (o sea, este blog!).

Cosa Buena 2: Mi cuerpo es interesante

Quizá es porque estoy estudiando para un bachiller de ciencia, pero la curiosidad nunca es tan mala como algunos creen. Tu cuerpo es en realidad fascinante para varios doctores y expertos de la medicina! La manera en que se comporta y sus muchos misterios son como un elegante rompecabezas, un enigma para que ellos observen y resuelvan.

Ahora, no te vendas a la ciencia, a menos que en serio lo desees. Encuentra dinero en otro sitio.Siempre me cuestionaba por que mi cuerpo se comportaba de este modo hasta que me di cuenta que lo que sentía, cómo lo sentía y cuando tenía constancia, casi de reloj. La manera en que tu cuerpo se opera a sí mismo es altamente interesante, investigar en el asunto no reventara su cerebro, pero te puede llevar a preguntarte algo o más acerca de tu cuerpo y de porqué hace lo que hace.

Quizá googlear o leer unos cuantos artículos de esto te ayudará en tu viaje con los demás. Pronto les enseñaré las mejores técnicas para investigar tu condición en un nuevo post!

Solo cierra tus ojos por un momentos y enfócate en cada parte de tu cuerpo, una por una. Piensa en algo bueno que todos ellos hicieron hoy: tus pies de llevaron a tomar desayuno en la mañana, tu manos sostuvieron tu libro favorito, tus ojos miraron una buena película, tu boca te ayudo a comer tu almuerzo, etc.Cada acción que parezca insignificante es increíble y debería celebrarse. Quiérete por eso!

Cosa Mala 3: Mi cuerpo es feo

El patito feo nunca se sintió tan feo. Ahora no solo tenía que lidiar con sus piernas gruesas que no entraban en esos horribles pantalones entallados, o el pequeño bulto que sobresale de su estómago donde, sorpresa, hay órganos importantes ahí! De repente, su baja confianza en sí misma también tomó un giro de 360 grados, pues regreso al mismo lugar, solo que en una perspectiva distinta. Su cuerpo ahora tenía otras razones por las cuales no era lindo, como las articulaciones anormalmente inflamadas, los dedos atorados como garras, o la constante sube y baja de peso que pasó por la falta de ejercicio.

La artritis y otras condiciones reumáticas a veces te hacen sentir terrible a cerca de tu apariencia. Cuidarla a veces ya no es una prioridad, o incluso puede ser desafiante. Tienes que elegir atuendos, usar zapatos incómodos, o no tener suficiente espacio en tu bolso o bolsillos (lo dire: los bolsillos de mujer son horribles!) para cargar tu medicina alrededor. El maquillaje también puede ser dañino para tu piel enrojecida por la inflamación, o tu cabello se podría caer por la medicina que tomes.

Y no hablemos de la rasuradora. Evitemoslo por nuestro propio bien.

Pero todos merecemos sentirnos lindos, al menos de vez en cuando. Ahora no me importa que me digan: puedo parecer un desastre pero de todas maneras me sentiré hermosa, todos los días. Porque mi cuerpo es mi casa, me cuida y yo lo cuido. Merece consentimientos y los proveeré de vez en cuando.

Cosa Buena 3: Mi cuerpo es hermoso

Ahora repitamos el ejercicio que acabamos de hacer, ahora abre tus ojos. Mirate al espejo, observa todo lo que eres, cada curva y cada detalle y imperfección. Di una cosa buena acerca de cada cosa. Mira esos ojos! Mira este peinado! Qué estilo! Mira esos hombros! Que fuerte! Y sigue asi.

El cuerpo de nadie es perfecto, y tratar de lucir listo para la portada de una revista todos los días no vale la pena. Pero por favor ten la oportunidad de probar cosas nuevas (o usadas) que te hagan sentir bien, lindo y con confianza todo el dia!

Así que si ves un vestido lindo que te gusta y lo puedes pagar, hazlo! Serás despampanante a donde vayas. Viste una camisa que te gusta y está a la venta? Consíguela! Te verás genial, tan cool.Pista: habrá un nuevo post acerca de tips de cómo encontrar y usar ropa adecuada para personas con artritis. Luchando con ese cierre cada mañana es un problema mayor! Detente!

Cosa Mala 4: Mi cuerpo no se va a curar

Como ya lo discute, nadie sabe por qué la artritis existe, y debido a eso, nadie sabe cómo se va y porqué. Quizá tenga que ver con el estrés. Quizá tenga algo que ver con las condiciones medioambientales o el estilo de vida. Quien sabe.

Pero eso no significa que debes perder la esperanza tan fácilmente. Si, algunos de nosotros han tenido esta condición por cinco, diez, quizá hasta treinta años, y sigue ahí. Pero el lugar de la artritis en nuestros cuerpos no es permanente, lo juro por Yuval Harari (uno de mis autores favoritos de todos los tiempos).

Puedes apostar todo lo que quieras que cuando menos te des cuenta, esta conocida sin invitación se desvanecerá, y tu serás libre al fin. Solo asegúrate de hacer tu trabajo y ser amable contigo mismo, tomar tus medicinas, comer saludablemente (al menos trata), haz algo de ejercicio, educate y a otros, ayuda a los que lo necesitan, etc.

Cosa Buena 4: Mi cuerpo se va a mejorar

Lo hará y lo está haciendo. Yas.

Yo a veces me siento abrumada por el balance que debo poner en mis prioridades y asegurarse de no sobre trabajar cuando me estoy mejorando de una crisis. La ironía: a veces trabajamos demasiado en mejorarnos. Leemos demasiado, investigando sin fin. Tratamos tantas dietas diferentes y jugos detox, esperando que uno sea la llave maestra de la artritis. Vamos a tantas cursos de yoga, tratamientos naturistas y muchas otras cosas más.

Estar emocionado de estar saludable es importante, es un buen comienzo. Pero no te aloques tratando de encontrar una cura que quizá ni siquiera puedas comprar o poner en un jugo detox. En vez de eso, confía en tu cuerpo. Sabe lo que hace, la mayoría del tiempo. Se sanará a sí mismo de la única manera que sabe cómo: comiendo, durmiendo, tomando agua, descansando y pidiendo cosas. Muchas cosas. Ya viene el siguiente post de cómo alistar un kit anti-artritis.

Mejorarse a veces parece una montaña rusa: a veces subimos, a veces caemos en picada de 20 metros en el cielo hacia el duro suelo. La gravedad es dura.Pero sabes lo que trato de decir. Las cosas a veces no son fáciles, y a veces no podemos controlar todo o saber qué hacer en ciertas situaciones. Por eso debes pedir ayudar. De tus padres o cuidadores, de tu doctor y de tus amigos. Construye un círculo protector alrededor tuyo para que siempre tengas a alguien sosteniendo tu espalda- a veces literalmente.

La artritis no es una caminata en el parque, pero otras condiciones reumáticas tampoco lo son. Son trabajos de tiempo completo que debemos realizar, pero no somos malos. No estamos enfermos. No somos débiles, feos, raros. Y definitivamente no vamos a sentarnos y escucharte decirnos eso. Porque tenemos cosas más importantes que hacer, y no nos podría importar menos lo que otros tengan que decir al respecto, o que digan de nuestro progreso. Sabemos lo que valemos y celebramos nuestros cuerpos en la mejor manera posible: tratándolo bien, con respeto, dignidad, amor y coraje.

Ama para que puedas amar. Nos vemos!

También me encantaría compartir con ustedes este grupo de familias en Kampala con niños con discapacidades en Ndagire Ritah @ritandagire76 en Instagram. Por favor copien y peguen su username y digan hola! Donen si pueden! Es por una buena causa!

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