#8

The conclusion is in the comments because it was too many characters.
Okay I know no one here cares or will have any idea what I’m talking about but I’m thoroughly annoyed.
Part of my point is that Hollywood needs to stop hiring adults to play teenagers (or in this case 17 year olds playing middle schoolers) but that’s not really important, it just makes the whole thing feel... off and destroys the writer’s supposed point.
The series finale of Andi Mack really disappointed me. The writing was never particularly great, but Andi as a character fell off a cliff whenever Jonah was involved. I never cared about him, he was always useless and just got in the way of more serious plot lines. But he's pretty so that obviously makes up for it all.
Not to mention the conclusion of her final arc made no sense. She isn't moving away. She's going to a different school in the same place. This is not the end. It being an end makes no sense. This is like a thousand tons of contrivium to circumvent the fact that the actors won't be able to realistically play characters that young for much longer (this was really a problem a long time ago) and/or the writers didn't have any ideas for another season. The end wasn't a logical end, it left too much open and the show had good ratings. No other explanation makes sense.
I should probably say something about Buffy, but I honestly didn't feel terribly strongly about her. My impression was positive, it's just she's a good role model for young girls and that's all there is to say. Her point of appearing in the show isn't relevant to me or my arguments.
I also want to mention Amber. I like her as a character. But of course she was just dropped at the end of the series and ignored. She deserved better. All the characters deserved better.
My real point is with Cyrus. I think he's a well written character. All the elements fit together and make sense. He's relatable and likable. Unfortunately, my thoughts are not that simple. His relationship with T.J. was horribly written. It was subtle, but in the nice obvious way that everyone who doesn't know how to write romance does it. Short story long, by like the second scene T.J. and Cyrus shared, it should have been obvious they were going to end up in a relationship. That is not a dynamic any straight guy has with another guy. How T.J. felt was never really addressed. The idea that he might be gay was never really brought up and acknowledged by the show or any character except that he's the tough guy and they never care for anyone but love interests. That's a rule. Plus, dude had no idea how to talk to girls. Cyrus was handled well in that regard. Except the fact that he took a disturbing amount of time to come out to Andi (don't even think that was on screen like when he came out to Buffy) because of course she was dating Jonah for like the 274309th time at the time. And like I said, he had the personality of a piece of cardboard so he existed simply to get in the way of Cyrus... And Iris happened. Not important, she never showed up again. But then T.J. was introduced. The first verbal acknowledgment was when Buffy comforts Cyrus upon seeing T.J. with Girl of No Plot Importance Besides Being a Romantic Foil #8 and he then said "I was really deluding myself" (couldn't catch the rest) and T.J. saying 'Cyrus never made me pick' (which could be interpreted many different yikes ways).
So the only direct development their relationship received was a couple of throwaway lines that could be missed or misinterpreted and came at the eleventh hour. Great.
Half way through the final episode this romantic tension that had been going on since (either the fifteenth or seventeenth episode, it has been a while since I saw them and I'm not going to check, whatever) out of fifty seven episodes and they just drop the damn ball. The two have a heart to heart and hold hands. They had to spring for kisses for the other characters, but not these two. The writer's apparent reasoning is that this is just too much for the middle school characters (but not too much for the others, who have surprisingly emotionally mature relationships for 13 year olds, except when it is the protagonist).
Why exactly is this a problem? Subtext isn't deep. When you start something with subtext, you have to go big in the end or it just feels like you're being lazy and trying to avoid it. The argument that the characters are in middle school falls flat in such a fantastic manner I can’t even. I genuinely forgot the characters were supposed to be 13 because the actors don’t look thirteen anymore. Not shocking considering several of the actors (including the actors for T.J. and Cyrus who are 17 now… How the hell does anyone think that’s believable? They’re almost adults!) were too old to play the characters two years ago, much less now.

Organism of the day #8

Name:
Poison Ivy

SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Toxicodendron radicans

KINGDOM:
Plantae

ENDANGERMENT:
Least concern

RANGE:
In North America, poison ivy can be found abundantly in Canada and the United States. Hell, the ivy has even been found in some mountains of Mexico (up to 5000 feet above sea level). In the USA, the ivy grows prevalently in the east, having a spread from Florida north to New York and Vermont or Maine. It thrashes west to South (but not North) Dakota and south once more to the state of Texas. As far as the westward spread, that marks where the poison ivy ends. However, it has isolated populations in Arizona (but seldom recorded in Colorado or New Mexico, which is interesting to note because it would seem that those areas are of necessity for poison ivy to have been able to breach into Arizona). And just as many other previously recorded fungi and plants before it, the poison ivy specimens exist in Canada, but only in Ontario and Quebec. Possibly in ages past, the poison ivy got across the pacific ocean to coastal Asian areas. Populations occupy Taiwan, Hong Kong, and central China.

ALL STATES IT OCCUPIES (abbreviation):
AL, AR, AZ, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NH, NY, OH, NJ, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV

HABITAT:
The poison ivy is not picky when it comes to places to live and thrive. It very much enjoys anthropogenic areas or forests. The poison ivy relies on full or partial sunlight to grow, so the ivy is found in the areas of forests where the three line breaks, where the sun’s bright shine filters through and gives the poison ivy the necessary nutrients. Outside of forests, it prefers other exposed rocky areas or open fields. It’s not biased towards any specific soil moisture and even grows in some very acidic soils, having a soil pH of up to 6.0. Despite this lack of pickiness, the poison ivy will not grow in a desert or arid environment, or an environment with a high carbon dioxide level. The ivy is also partial to areas with occasional seasonal flooding

AUTHORS NOTE:
Outside of the screen, I live in a very highly suburban area of Colorado. Near my house, the terrain is extremely strange. There’s a dip in the land where water runs through in the spring. On the other side is an area switching between open fields and dense forests giving a home to deer and coyote. In the golden open fields, a seed-bearing plant thrives and colors the earth gold. Over the past year, less water has been running in the normally dirty dip, allowing for vegetation to grow. Now, on the side with the houses there once laid a large patch of poison ivy. Due to the new competition of land with the other weeds, and the fact that the competing weeds came over in winter, the ivy was unable to survive and have since died (except for the appropriately named “garden of Weeden”)

DESCRIPTION:
The poison ivy appears in a variety of circumstances, making it hard to provide a definite description when it comes to things like average size and shape. The deciduous leaves of poison ivy have three almond-shaped leaflets (smaller leaves that compose the large leaf). The leaf color is a light to dark green, that darkens with age. They turn bright red in the fall or while expanding. Throughout their life, they cycle between the colors green, yellow, orange, and red. They’re also reportedly shiny. Each leaflet is 3-12 cm (1.2-4.7 in) long with some able to get a foot (30 cm) long. The leaflets are ridged with teeth on the edge with a smooth surface. The plant has no thorns. Instead, it likes to deliver its poison through different means

POISON:
The allergic reaction produced through contact with a poison ivy plant is from a chemical called urushiol, which has caused anaphylaxis (extreme swelling of the face and throat) in some cases. It also sparks a rash or blisters that last five to twelve days, or near a month in some cases. Annually, 350,000 victims in the US alone receive urushiol through poison ivy, That is the same number of people as the population of Iceland. It's the sap produced from poison ivy that contains the urushiol that leads to the caustic effects

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicodendron_radicans
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=tora2
http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=c261
https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=tora2
https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/toxicodendron/radicans/

IMAGE:
A massive wall of poison ivy

Mushroom of the day #8
#education
Well, buckle up. This is about as weird as it gets

NAME:
Stinky squid

SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Pseudocolus fusiformis

EDIBILITY:
Not inedible, but at the same time not recommended for eating

SPECIES:
Phallales

FAMILY:
Phallaceae

LOCATIONS:
The stinky squid has many locations worldwide. Some of these locations include the United States, Australia, Java, Reunion island, the Philippines, Japan, and Turkey. In the United States, the mushroom can be found between the summer and fall months primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, but also distributed throughout Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Kansas, and even some parts of Hawaii. It was thought to have been brought over from Asia. It also spreads very rapidly, much like the death cap. The mushroom typically grows in wood borders, parks, gardens, wood chips, and mulch. The threes the mushroom has a tendency towards are coniferous and birch. Other than that, it grows in mixed forests. A liquid called the gleba is apart of this stinkhorn’s anatomy and attracts flies to carry it’s spores and reproduce

DESCRIPTION (oh boy):
The mushroom is an egg based one. When the egg hatches, three stalks grow from the ground and connect at a center point. The stalks stick together at the tip from the liquid they produce at the gleba. This mushroom has no cap or gills. The head is the term used to describe the area where all the stalks intersect. It’s typically ¾ to 1 ¼ “ (2-3 cm) wide, and 1 ¼ to 2 ⅜” (3-6 cm) high. Under the three arms is a central stalks in which the arms initially sprout off of. This stalk is only ¼-⅝ “ (0.5 - 1.5 cm) long and ¼ - ⅜ “ (0.5 - 1 cm). The ‘arms’ of the fungus are typically orange to pink in coloration and the spore-based liquid excreted from the gleba is brown and very fragrant.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocolus_fusiformis#Habitat_and_distribution (website)
https://www.mushroomexpert.com/pseudocolus_fusiformis.html (website)
https://youtu.be/d2fCf8G0JCk (video)
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (book)