So, reveal gone right. Maddie and Jack are nothing but supportive of Danny. Of course they feel guilty, for their bigotry, attacking their son, never even noticing the accident. It's Jasmine that proposes a family bonding activity, to spend time together and work through the years of issues that they can only now address.
The activity in question? Family Road Trip & Field Study! That's right; what better way for a family of scientists to bond than correcting literal decades of bad science? Which is how the Fenton family, alongside Sam and Tucker at Danny's request, wound up in Gotham, hoping to interview one of the strongest Genii Loccorum in America.
Of course, there's more than a few ectoplasmic encounters waiting for them in Gotham. Everything from an angry Revenant, to a baby liminal that Danny just knows is related to the guy who's been bathing in dirty ecto for like centuries, to a horde of restless spirits following some clown like a permanent thunderstorm.
you want a new kind of guy, fine, i raise you: the lady i was briefly roommates with in college who once smoked a blunt at a party and then spent an hour confessing earnestly to me that she genuinely preferred reading detailed episode recaps over actually watching the tv show in question
i. about 2 weeks ago, i was told there's a good chance that in 5 or so years, i'll need a wheelchair.
ii. okay. i loved harry potter as a kid. i have a hypothesis about this to be honest - why people still kind of like it. it's that she got very lucky. she managed to make a cross-generational hit. it was something shared for both parents and kids. it was right at the start of a huge cultural shift from pre to post-internet. i genuinely think many people were just seeking community; not her writing. it was a nice shorthand to create connection. which is a long way of saying - she didn't build this legacy, we built it for her. she got lucky, just once. that's all.
iii. to be real with you, i still struggle with identifying as someone with a disability, which is wild, especially given the ways my life has changed. i always come up against internalized ableism and shame - convinced even right now that i'm faking it for attention. i passed out in a grocery store recently. i hit my head on the shelves while i went down.
iv. he raises his eyebrows while he sends me a look. her most recent new book has POTS featured in it. okay, i say. i already don't like where this is going. we both take another bite of ramen. it is a trait of the villain, he says. we both roll our eyes about it.
v. so one of the things about being nonbinary but previously super into harry potter is that i super hate jk rowling. but it is also not good for my mental health to regret any form of joy i engaged with as a kid. i can't punish my young self for being so into the books - it was a passion, and it was how i made most of my friends. everyone knew about it. i felt like everyone had my same joy, my same fixation. as a "weird kid", this sense of belonging resonated with me so loudly that i would have done anything to protect it.
vi. as a present, my parents once took me out of school to go see the second movie. it is an incredibly precious memory: my mom straight-up lying about a dentist appointment. us snickering and sneaking into the weekday matinee. within seven years of this experience, the internet would be a necessity to get my homework finished. the world had permanently changed. harry potter was a relic, a way any of us could hold onto something of the analog.
vii. by sheer luck, the year that i started figuring out the whole gender fluid thing was also the first year people started to point out that she might have some internalized biases. i remember tumblr before that; how often her name was treated as godhood. how harry potter was kind of a word synonymous for "nerdy but cool." i would walk out of that year tasting he/him and they/them; she would walk out snarling and snapping about it.
viii. when i teach older kids creative writing, i usually tell them - so, she did change the face of young adult fiction, there's no denying that. she had a lot more opportunities than many of us will - there were more publishing houses, less push for "virally" popular content creators. but beyond reading another book, we need to write more books. we need to uplift the voices of those who remain unrepresented. we need to push for an exposure to the bigotry baked into the publishing system. and i promise you: you can write better than she ever did. nothing she did was what was magical - it was the way that the community responded to it.
ix. i get home from ramen. three other people have screenshotted the POTS thing and sent it to me. can you fucking believe we're still hearing this shit from her when it's almost twenty-fucking-twenty-three. the villain is notably also popular on tumblr. i just think that's funny. this woman is a billionaire and she's mad that she can't control the opinions of some people on a dying blue site that makes no money. lady, and i mean this - get a fucking life.
x. i am sorry to the kid i was. maybe the kid you were too. none of us deserved to see something like this ruined. that thing used to be precious to me. and now - all those good times; measured into dust.
/// 9.6.2022 // FUCKING AGAIN, JK? Are you fucking kidding me?
After watching this first two episodes of the Percy Jackson Disney+ show, my main takeaway (outside of Percy taking on THREE Ares kids with no training and not even being wet) is that Luke was done so, so well.
The actor EMBODIES him. Even before I saw him acting, one picture was enough to convince me that this man WAS Luke, despite looking nothing like him. His friendship with Percy feels so much stronger. I'm already feeling the devastation from the inevitable betrayal. Just. He's so well done.
rewatched TG:M all the way through for the first time in a couple months, and god. hans zimmer did not have to put everything he owned into that singular swell. and neither did literally everyone else.
maverick: terrified and alone, realizing his son basically just blew up in front of him
cyclone warlock and hondo: different levels of hopelessness, expediting the mourning process so they can continue with the mission
hangman: physically stops breathing. can’t focus. he has to hyperventilate to get oxygen back in his body. all he’s thinking about is bradley seven summers ago, when they were still okay. and now he’s never going to be able to apologize for everything. it’s his fault. he’s the better pilot, everyone knows it, but bradley had the winning hand, the ace in the hole. so he should’ve tried harder with maverick, not picked as many fights, flown better, flown faster, fought harder, been different, done everything different. you can physically pinpoint something inside himself dying alongside bradley.
John Watson saying you join me and my companion/colleague/friend/flat mate while the only thing I can think of is oh please cut the bullshit.
Companion is already the gayest word in existence and yet you want to salvage yourself by flat mate in a desperate try of not using roommate which is actually nothing more than just the second gayest word in existence and you and I both know it.
Who do you think you’re fooling John, my beloved sweet summer child, only yourself I’m afraid.
I wonder what the kids and teachers in luz's school think of her now. Shes stopped "terrorizing" other kids, mainly because she seems to have stopped engaging with most of her classmates period. She no longer brings live animals or taxidermy to school. She even participates in english class occasionally, even if she doesnt "get" the point of the book. Her rants only clock as suicidal if you know about her time in the boiling isles which the people at her school do not.
I wonder if luz's teachers and schoolmates think that luz mellowed out over the summer. If the principal/counselor that suggested she go to the camp patted himself on the back because shes "improved."