i think i've finally figured out what exactly i found so deeply flawed in the daisy jones and the six show, to the extent that i couldn't finish it at all.

in the book, the daisy-billy-camila was never a love triangle. calling them a love triangle insinuates that there was a competition between daisy and camila for billy - a narrative that the show tried so hard to push that it sacrificed all the naunces of their characters in exchange.

book!billy was always going to choose camila. he cheated on her multiple times, yes, and was a fuckup in every sense of the word. but he had the sole redeeming quality that he was trying. trying to be the man that camila deserved, the man his daughters deserved. trying to break the cycle of abuse/neglect his father had inflicted on him. and that was why camila stayed for him, because she knew he loved her above all and was never going to leave her for daisy, as she says when she confronts daisy in the book.

show!billy has all the terrible qualities of his book counterpart, but none of the 'trying'. none of things that made him likable, if only to camila. even daisybilly show fans can't talk about his character beyond them as a couple.

and camila and daisy had such a beautiful dynamic in the books. camila viewed daisy as the twin soul of the man she loved, and in that sense she loved her too. she wanted the best for daisy always, and it showed. it showed in the way she spoke to daisy - never as if she blamed her for billy, the way she cared so deeply for daisy's heartache she wanted daisy to shield herself from it. show!camila never displays that nuance in the face of billy between them the way book!camila did, and that utterly changed/destroyed the daisy, billy and camila's relationship for drama?

and all of this in context of the ending makes it seem that daisy told billy to go fulfill his obligations to his wife, like camila was a duty for him uphold begrudgingly. and aging the characters down ruins the book's narrative that billy loved his wife his whole life, and not just until she died and he went back to daisy. it doesn't show with the same extent of the book the dedication, the love between the two of them, and the respect daisy held for that. in doing so, it does all three of their characters a fucking injustice.

I’m staying at my parents house today and now I’m reminded why I don’t want to move back in with them again this summer. I love them both to bits and we have a really good relationship, so it has nothing to do with that. My mom gets so stressed and annoyed when she has plans and things don’t work out in her favor. Like today, she had scheduled a phone meeting while she was going for a drive to drop some stuff off. My dad had accidentally put both keys to the car my mom was going to drive in his jacket when he left for work this morning. My car, an old thing without hands free or anything remotely resembling Bluetooth, is still in the driveway by the way, so she could’ve borrowed that to drop the stuff off. I get that she would then have to use the phone speakers for the meeting instead, but at least it’s a solution that could work. It’s a 30 minute meeting, so it’s not as if it’s not doable. She also called my dad to ask where the key was (rightfully so. How the hell would she know where it was if she didn’t call him), but she started the conversation with “oh my god I’m so fucking sick of this” before she even told him what was going on. I feel like she could’ve handled it in a better way. Idk

Adhd RantTM incoming

I’ve been officially diagnosed with adhd for a couple years now and one of the fun parts about *that* is trying to figure out what is adhd versus what is just me being me.

So one of the latest items ive been trying to decipher is “Do i hyperfixate or am I someone that just gets fixated on something before moving on to the next thing?”

Cause on one hand, im not sure if a person can be fixated or something a “normal” amount? Especially if that person has adhd?

And on the other hand, everytime i look up “hyper fixation definition” i get stuff that says like “Hyperfixation happens when you're completely engrossed by something, to the point where it becomes all-consuming and disrupts your day-to-day functioning.” Which like… I wouldn’t consider that it’s disrupting my day to day life?

Like yeah I’ll definitely fuck over my sleep schedule if im really into some art im making or a game im playing. And sure i’ll definitely be thinking about some hobbies or interests throughout the day. But its not like I’m isolating myself just so i can watch some more youtube videos about it.

But on the other OTHER hand, I had a pretty similar dilemma about having adhd AT ALL. So whos to say this isnt the same situation.

Musical theatre and marching band should be accepted as respectable sports

No, no, I'm serious. This isn't the theatre kid or center snare drum at high school pep rallies in me talking. They should be taken seriously as athletics and treated with as much respect. They're glossed over and underfunded and treated like throwaways because nobody within their circles seems to grasp how hard they are, or how much trained skill they take, or how much dedication they need, because they don't look like the brute strength of other athletics.

I was never very good at brute strength. I always fell on my face in gym class and struggled to even get a hold of the rope we had to climb. But different people are built for different things, it's a mammalian survival thing, and what I was good at were endurance and agility. I can run, you guys. I can jump, and I just don't fucking stop. I have excellent coordination and spatial awareness, I was always the last man standing in dodgeball because it was based on speed and coordination and endurance. Maybe I can't deadlift 50 pounds without using my legs, but you could strap 50 pounds of equipment to my torso and tell me to perform for 2 straight hours in a 5-layer peacock suit in the 40 celcius heat, all the while keeping perfect time, recalling extremely complicated drum scores in my head, and improvising in time when the basketball team decided to interact with us, and I could. That's what marching band is, you guys. That sounds hard, yeah? Because it is. And it's absolutely draining. Your whole body hurts after a performance, those harnesses like to dig into pressure points because they tend to be metal and heavier than your actual instrument in the case of us drumline guys, the actual performance feels like 4 workouts in a heat-trapping uniform that is not conducive to the amount of sweat you WILL collect, and the shit you do to prep beforehand is nuts. There's no room for being out of shape in something like that. If you've ever been in marching band, you've probably had a moment where you all slipped off your dumb-looking hats in the school bus after a performance and laughed at each other because everyone looks like they just showered and forgot to bring a towel. Bonus points if your coach made a comment about how you all smelled like shit. Ours used to bring a bottle of axe just to blast into the radius around him while we all tried to hug him.

And musical theatre isn't much better, either. I ran with this group for 2 years after high school, which was basically a cast of wonderful people who are dedicated to bringing broadway to the middle east, because we didn't get much of that out there. Every year we did 4 shows: 2 proper off-broadway spectacle acts, and 2 low-budget revue shows to raise money for the future expenses of those belty emotional boys. During my tenure with them, we knocked out 9 to 5, Sister Act, Newsies, and Anything Goes. Now, I don't know if y'all have ever seen these shows, but, uh... good fucking god. I need to point out that this was not mine nor anyone else's primary job, because we were a nonprofit. We didn't get paid. We showed up every other weekday from 7 to 10, and then an 8-hour session every saturday. Because we had to knock out shows that had the choreography of gods in 3 months. We spent 2 weeks memorizing the vocals. That's it. 2 weeks. Then we had to move on to choreography, which was so physically demanding that if I didn't have a desk job at the time where I only left to go to press conferences, I would die. I'd stumble into work on burning calves and aching feet every morning after rehearsals. Sometimes I'd just lose my voice for the entire day because I blew it out on a belt in Seize the Day the night before. Don't even get me started on how bad I was when we did Sister Act, because I had a major role. I was Curtis, because it was funny to cast the babyfaced ginger who's 90 pounds soaking wet as a feared crime lord. Because I had to stay for extra time, considering I'm a very firm belty tenor and I implore you to listen to how much he growls in When I Find My Baby. A bitch couldn't speak outside of rehearsal. And y'know how in other sports they tell you to mind your breathing? We don't get that. Your breathing minds the song you're singing, and you better keep dancing or the whole number's fucked, so take a deep breath before you run on. Don't fuck up the belt, now. If you watch the tap numbers in Anything Goes or even just the general everything about Newsies, I want you to imagine learning those entire shows in 3 months on top of a full-time job and then going through tech week and the 2 weeks we booked for production. What about that shit isn't a goddamn olympic-callibre sport??

Marching band and musical theatre are in no way things that just anyone can do. They are physically and mentally demanding. Maybe from an audience perspective they just look like coordinated dances and fun songs, but I guarantee that in every show you see, everyone's running on exhaust fumes. Stage makeup cakes for a reason, you guys. You can't see the exhaustion and sleep deprivation and total lack of complexion from eating like absolute shit for a week behind a thick layer of foundation, and just when we're all about to collapse, the lights go up and it's time for that big act 1-ending tap number. Oh, you sprained your ankle in the last one? Too bad, smile through it and give the people what they paid for. And the applause at the end while you gasp for breath is as addicting as heroin, so you'll keep coming back.

And then people have the gall to say they're not real sports. Is it because they aren't enough of a masculine wet dream for you? Makes you think.

so i really can't drink anymore with this new fibro medication, which is fine, because i started to realize i was having a beer or so every couple of days when i really didn't need it. but it is weird. i had a little more to drink last night and woke up with a huge headache (almost hangover-y) (maybe a hangover tbh) which normally would NOT have happened. and i've been...thinking a lot about how ingrained drinking is in our culture and how wine = happiness and hard alcohol = celebration and just trying to be mindful of my responses to this kind of messaging. but it is kind of weird cutting myself off from a social activity that's so prevalent among my peers and my friends. my friend ryan always barhops on his birthday. my friend brad and i like to get drunk and do karaoke. my brother and i made plans to get tipsy and explore the city together. it's weird that i can't now. but also, it's good. i wouldn't trade my body's wellbeing for the ability to get drunk. i am having my VERY FIRST night with pain at a 1 (out of 10) for the first time in...god, idk how long. years probably. being on this med is, honest to god, lifechanging. and... i'm allowed to have fun and enjoy life without a cider or beer with dinner.

So y’know how I promised to never talk about that one Lego show ever again on my very much non-Lego blog, because if you get me going I will Never Shut Up About It? Well that was a lie. I’m gonna talk about it some more. You can’t legally stop me in a way that matters

In my post “Reasons Why Every BBCM Fan Is Legally Required to Watch Ninjago”, I outlined some similarities between the characters Merlin and Zane.

Well. I found more.

But instead of giving you that whole immensely exhausting Extended List, I’m gonna focus on one similarity in particular that makes me want to freakin combust

Remember that scene (5x13 “Diamond of the Day Part 1″) with Merlin in the Crystal Cave? Well. It turns out Zane has a scene (1x07 “Tick Tock”) that’s JUST LIKE THAT WTF

Seeing his dead father after years of separation? Check

Being underground and alone while his friends fight in a battle elsewhere? Check

Learning of his non-human nature (Zane being a robot, Merlin being "magic itself"), something he was somehow oblivious to until outside forces pointed it out? Check

Parallels between Balinor telling Merlin about his destiny as Emrys, vs Dr. Julien telling Zane he was "built to protect those who cannot protect themselves?" Double check

Parallels between Merlin being told he "always will be", vs Zane watching his father grow old and die while Zane himself remains unaging? CHECK

Parallels between Merlin being told to “remember who you are”, vs Zane finding his memory switch and recovering his lost memories? Check

"Finding oneself", which leads to the subsequent unlocking of certain powers that will help them save their friends mid-battle? Powers that can only be unlocked by overcoming your inner demons, accepting yourself for who you are, and embracing your true nature? Check check check!

GENTLY RELEASING A BUTTERFLY FROM YOUR HANDS????? OH MY GOD. THEY BOTH RELEASE BUTTERFLIES FROM THEIR HANDS WHILE SMILING SOFTLY. SAME CAMERA ANGLE AND EVERYTHING. IM GOING TO SCREAM

Just watch this scene and tell me you dont get at least vague DotD vibes from this!

Like. The biggest difference between Merlin and Zane - and really the only one that matters imo - is the fact that Zane starts out very serious and stoic but gradually develops emotion/becomes the world's sassiest robot through observing and learning from his friends, whereas Merlin has always been a snarky bastard and that’s unlikely to ever change

There’s also the fact that they both at one point go on a Chore RantTM, where they go off about the unfair amount of responsibilities placed on them, and that may just be the funniest thing ever (Merlin’s is here, and Zane’s is here)

slightly long but relevant explanation of why naraku LOVES kikyou, how she is literally the center of his entire world, how his life is meaningless without her, bc tbh its been 2 years & it blows my mind that some ppl still don’t see this and i am t i r e d

(summary @ the bottom for ppl who don’t wanna read the whole rantTM. if anyone doesn’t understand why narkik is shipped , pls, pls read this)

first and FOREMOST,, i’d like to reiterate that oNIGUMO IS NOT NARAKU. they are 2 entirely different people. kikyou is a different person than kagome, right??? right !!! i could go on about how kagome/naraku parallel one another and how kikyou/kagome & onigumo/naraku are textually compared in literally every fucking way, but that’s whole different discussion

anyway: naraku loVEs kikyou. naraku. all by himself. ??? why??? bc , kinda like how kagome is different than kikyou and loves inuyasha for her own reasons, naraku fell in love with kikyou for reasons entirely beyond onigumo. kikyou lived her human life with as much agency as a human could have. but naraku was literally born for her?? his . literal. entire. body. would not exist. if not. for onigumo’s thirst. in fACt, that was part of the bargain he made w/ the demons !!! like “hey guys, i’ll let y’all eat me alive if you give me a new body, so i can grab the shikon jewel & grab me some kikyou ;)))”

the problem?? naraku was a person of his own. thats why he had 0% issues w murdering kikyou in s1 episode 1, then frolicked around feudal japan for 50+ years w/o worry.

THEN. SHE COMES BACK . suddenly naraku’s Thirsty Human Heart is fuc kin racing, making his hands sweat, shoving warm fuzzy feelings down his throat whenever kikyou makes some snide remark about his body, etc. and he’s like??? “fuck fu ck cfuCk fu Ck” for CHAPTERS ON END. it pisses him off that she has that effect on him, it pisses him off that he can’t just stab her 10 million times, it pisses him off that she Turns Him On even tho she’s made of clay. every cell of kikyou makes him wanna die and he Hates Her Entire Ass. its incredible

fast forward a couple chapters: naraku finally removes his heart. hurray !!!! right ??? n  o p E !! he learns p quickly that the human heart that loves kikyou is the LITERAL GLUE THAT HOLDS HIS PHYSICAL BODY TOGETHER. just !!! let that sink in !!! w/o that love, his bod y actually f cukin cant keep itself together,!!!

thats?? not even the best part???? whats even better is when round 2 of this happens, onigumo’s human heart doesn’t love kikyou; the infant says himself that he did not possess the love for kikyou which caused naraku so much suffering. i think its at this point where these feelings become naraku’s; they’ve evolved from onigumo’s own. bc, a few chapters down the line, naraku realizes that. he doesn’t know what he wants to do w the jewel after its completed. therefore he has no DriveTM to complete it. and the jewel couldn’t have THAT

so naraku has to take back his love for kikyou. why??? bc the bitterness, hurt, and anger that he felt because of it fueled his actions. ALL OF HIS ACTIONS. kagome points this out later -- how he makes every1 suffer by breaking human bonds. the agony he felt from unrequited love fueled everything he did, up ‘til he made his wish on the jewel, whICH WAS FOR KIKYOU’S HEART!!! not for the chance to feel her up, not to fcuk her 5 ways to sunday -- he wishes for her heart. on tOP of thaT, he laments about how they could never be together: not in this life, and not in the afterlife (bc ,, like.. even he knows he’s gonna burn in hell 5ever lmao). idk about y’all, but if i lust after some1, the first thing i ??? dont think of?? is their heart?? or the fact that we couldn’t /be together in life/??? just !! sayin !!

naraku wishes for kikyou’s heart because it’s an echo of what onigumo wanted, yes, and onigumo’s feelings are the reason his Whole Entire Life started. BUT he wishes for her heart bc he realized that he had no other purpose on planet earth other than to love her after completing the jewel. naraku himself loves kikyou bc she fleshes out his existence -- he literally doesn’t know what to do without her. after finishing the jewel, he has no other p ur p o se than to love her. kagome, who asserts her identity beyond kikyou through her love for inuyasha, is able to free herself from the jewel -- but naraku could not. even though he himself fell in love with kikyou, it was in accordance with the circumstances of his creation. inuyasha says “kagome was born for me & i was born for her as well!!” guess what my guys??? naraku was born for kikyou. she’s the literal core of his existence. and they hate each other bc the shikon jewel needed it to be that way. neither of them had any choice in that.

this isn’t even incLUDIng the actual literary narrative structure that parallels inukag OR the fact that narkik is the cyclical repeat of midoriko/magatsuhi a la the jewel’s manipulation OR how the overall theme of ~~humanity vs. monstrosity~~~ rumiko makes in the text is in accordance w/ the fact that naraku is so haunted by love, a human emotion?? i mean !! god !!

anyways , to summarize , can you fucking believe naraku’s entire existence revolves around how he’s supposed to suffer, how his love will never be returned, how he Has No Other Purpose on god’s green earth than to love Kikyou + be hated by her + complete the jewel 2 trap them both inside it???? can you belie ve that naraku was his own goddamn person, tried his hardest NOT to love her, but like how kagome was ~~born for inuyasha~~, naraku was born for kikyou, and had no fucking way out of the fact that he loved her just bc he happened to be the person born via onigumo’s thirst???? bc the shikon jewel squished him into a role and didn’t care about how he was his own person??? and can you believe that in sPITe of all this , naraku fell in love with kikyou for the fact that she grounds his very bEING, that his love for her is the only thing he knows, that at the end of the day he still wished for her heart ??

and no it’s not healthy love, it’s not functional love, it’s by no means good reason to love anyone at all. but naraku’s love is what differentiates him from onigumo, and it exhausts me when i see them being lumped together bc everyone remembers how kagome was different from kikyou?? rumiko’s Whole Entire Point w/ so much of the series was that people are not defined by their heritage, that they are not defined by the people who preceded them, that every1 is their Own Goddamn PersonTM even in the face of some(thing)one reducing you to a role just bc you have similarities to whatever they want to see. naraku was his Own Damn Person, yet he still fell in love w/ kikyou , he wouldn’t exist w/o that love, those inescapable feelings for her define his life, & idk about y’all but this is why narkik is my otp?? i will never be over it, not for as long as i live, and i still can’t believe the most academically consistent/intricate story i’ve ever seen is from a fcukin 90s anime

Some scrub: who is Audre Lorde?

Me:

Hey actually. as someone with... strained relations with a parent, I'll just say

Endgame really fucked up that final exchange between Howard and Tony

"Dames, it's been like, a year. You've said this alread-" AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN

Endgame did everyone dirty, but the dirty they did Tony really rubs me the wrong way in a more personal fashion. I'm gonna prereq this by saying that it's important to write a traumatized character, it's important to portray emotional abuse on screen as well, especially when that emotional abuse comes from a parent. Tony Stark really connected with me over the last now 11 years, in a way other characters never really have because of that. Because I got to see a character go through trauma and come to terms with a parent who loved him conditionally and was never really there for him at the same time that I was going through the same things, and however y'all discoursers think about Tony, that is important. Howard wasn't something he could just get over, and that was okay. He wasn't a failure for it. He was still a hero, just one with PTSD and an anxiety disorder.

And then Endgame dropped, and Howard Stark, his emotionally abusive father who gave his son a lifetime of inferiority issues, was made out to simply be misunderstood, and a secretly good father by Tony's own words. I, uh... no. No. Stop all up in here. What the fuck?? No!!

Not a single person on that writing team has ever dealt with an emotionally abusive parent, and it fucking shows. Having a moving on scene is all well and good, and some peoole move on by forgiving, but what really hammers the nail in the coffin for me is the complete dissipation of any blame on Howard Stark by the man he abused. That completely absolves him of the long-term trauma he directly caused in his son and the legitimacy of Tony's pain in one fell swoop. Congratulations, you missed the point by so much that you somehow swung your bat at the outfielder's face.

Fuck that whole scene, man. I wouldn't have had Tony cause a scene, but I would've had him acknowledge the pain Howard caused him with some commentary about how his father wasn't the best, how it really messed him up and caused him a lot of pain he's been working on healing from, and when they part ways for the last time, he'd refuse a handshake and say a quite assertive "goodbye, Howard." I'd make sure the next shot had that dirt road in frame so you could see the clear divide between them as Tony walked away, but there'd be that sense that the divide was his choice, that he gained power over his own narrative of tragedy and was able to look it in the face and say "goodbye" as he physically moved on. No "thank you"s because there's nothing to thank an abuser for. No "heehoo he was actually good father because he was worried about being one :))" because Howard, objectively, was a terrible father no matter what his intentions were. Just a "goodbye" because that's all they really deserve from you, and that takes a lot of courage and strength to look that person in the eye and say that to them. That's a narrative of victory; they gave Tony submissive defeat.

For the love of gods great fuck, stop making traumatized characters invalidate themselves and absolve their abusers of any and all faults. I'm usually not so heated about stuff like this, but Tony's been... a really important character to me growing up, and even though I was 20 and on my own and able to fend for myself and all that by the time Endgame came out, that scared, manipulated, gaslit 10 year-old kid who saw Iron Man 1 and saw a part of himself in Tony Stark that gave him some strength and resolve to keep going because if Iron Man could do it he could too felt utterly betrayed. That 14 year-old teenager who was going through the fallout of that abuse, the onset of mental illness, the anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts who saw Iron Man 3 and saw his hero go through panic attacks, trauma, and mental dysfunction and found untold comfort and cathartic familiarity in that was totally distraught. Fuck, even the adopted 17 year-old who read International Iron Man over and over because woah, Tony's adopted too! And his strained relationship with Howard had an extra layer of complication because society always impressed upon him that being adopted means his parents can do no wrong because they must be patron saints of perfection if they took in a Poor Abandoned BabyTM felt disgusted by the ending they gave that relationship.

Fuck man, is it really that hard to give traumatized characters power over their own narratives and not kill them off for tragedy porn?? Fuck Endgame, Tony's alive and retired and happy with his wife daughter and adopted spider boy in my heart.

I always find it so ironic how being anti-public healthcare in canada is political suicide even among the conservatives

You can NOT be pro-private healthcare in canadian politics you just can’t without being publicly burned at the stake and that’s a good thing! I’m not saying it’s a bad thing! At least we know that’s one thing the cons can’t take from us without a nationwide riot!

Nah, it’s mostly the history of public healthcare in canada when contrasted with party beefs that make it SO ironic.

For those out of the know, we have 3 major political parties: the conservatives who are getting increasingly alt-right and it’s frankly scary, the liberals who are Enlightened CentristsTM, and the NDP who actually care about changing this place for the better. The NDP don’t usually have a lot of hold on federal government as that’s typically a lib vs con battleground, but on provincial and riding levels, they really shine and make the country better. The libs and cons dont like each other, but they do NOT like the NDP, because they’re a threat to both the institutions and the unfairly disproportionate first past the post electoral system that keeps them both in power they’re scawy extweme-weft sociawists!! Deadass I’ve heard a liberal MPP use the phrase “extremism from both the conservatives and the NDP” in person at an event I was volunteering for and i lost 10 years of my life. People hate the NDP. the other parties hate the NDP. I’m Albertan! If you utter the phrase “New Democratic” in Alberta you will not finish that title because 3 people are already kicking the shit out of you. “I thought they did a good job with what they had when they ran the province and I definitely prefer them to the UCP” would get me HANGED.

And yet, Tommy Douglas is a legendary political figure in this country. There was a national poll for most influential Canadian a while ago, and he WON! Not Terry Fox, or John A. MacDonald, Tommy freaking Douglas. The guy who ran through a political minefield of opposition to give Saskatchewan universal health care when he was premiere, and eventually gave it to the rest of the country. Guess what, y’all? He was NDP party leader. Canada’s favourite bragging point was given to them by the NDP. y’all played yourselves while Tommy Douglas was out here pulling what’s called a pro-gamer move.

Conservatives be like “the NDP are dangerous far-left extremists” to the ER doctor who’s pulling the lightbulb they shoved up their ass out for free