phantomrose96

[phantomrose96]

Seems to primarily be impacting the your blog view (like for me, https://www.tumblr.com/blog/phantomrose96 )

Chat is it just me or do we have a new Tumblr glitch?

[phantomrose96]

icons! unnecessary! they were taking up space

Chat is it just me or do we have a new Tumblr glitch?

[phantomrose96]

Compact!!! for your convenience!!!

Chat is it just me or do we have a new Tumblr glitch?

[phantomrose96]

Chat is it just me or do we have a new Tumblr glitch?

[phantomrose96]

I think the biggest plot twist of Exclusion Zone for me so far is the fact that the Fenton parents are actually paying attention. You really set up my expectations in the beginning with details like Jazz not needing her prepared excuses and Jack and Maddie easily accepting the Big School Project excuse.

But then when Danny comes clean to them about his "allergy", their response makes it clear that they DID notice. They ask Jazz "Is that why you've been cleaning so much?" and Danny "Is that why you've been away from home all week?" and I realized that I had them all wrong.

(Exclusion Zone / ao3 link)

Jack and Maddie are definitely very distracted by the Blood Blossom experiments, but they're not completely tuned out! Their kids are both teenagers who can be trusted with a fair bit of autonomy, which is how Jack and Maddie are approaching this.

There's more they should notice, for sure, and Jack and Maddie shouldn't be shutting themselves away in the lab for 23 hours a day. But Maddie does try to intervene with Jazz's over-cleaning (which she mistakes for a manifestation of anxiety about adulthood responsibility, which IS how Jazz spun it to her.) And they've noticed Danny's absence, but they have no reason to doubt her when Jazz says it's just for an intense group-project Danny is working on with Sam and Tucker, or that Danny has gone to bed already.

They mostly assume if their children need them for something, Jazz or Danny will come get them.

And it IS hard to watch (well, read) because you're seeing it all with the knowledge that they're gleefully fumigating the house with a poison that kills Danny. But no one's told them!!

In contrast to the severity of what they've unleashed, their actual sin list is pretty light...

[phantomrose96]

i bet it feels so good if you're a little cat to put your head upside down like that

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[phantomrose96]

I like to have fun enjoy and celebrate

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[phantomrose96]

Perhaps the most important detail: She told me this story today, Wednesday, July 9th, which is in fact, her birthday.

Happy every single Wednesday is my mom's birthday Wednesday but most especially today Wednesday which is actually her birthday.

Fun story from my mom just now.

She lives alone with her dog Ash. And as one does when just living with a pet, she has a lot of made-up nonsense she just says to him, including a lot of made-up vaguely German sounding words.

And the German isn't completely random. Some of it is hold-over actual German from when she (temporarily) lived in Switzerland 32 years ago.

She told me, "Most days I'll say to Ash, 'Was ist heute? (What is today?) Heute ist (Today is)'" followed by the day of the week. She also said she was having the damnedest time remembering the German word for 'Thursday.'

Like she could get through "Heute ist Sonntag," "Heute ist Montag," "Heute ist Dienstag"... and blank out at Thursday. Until finally she decided, screw it, googling it! (Thursday is Donnerstag, btw.)

"Except," she told me, "I googled it, and it went Sonntag, Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, and I went 'Mittwoch? What the hell is Mittwoch?'"

Mittwoch is in fact Wednesday. But that's not the day of the week my mom was tripping on. She knew (thought she knew) Wednesday. So my mom was left going "Okay then what the hell have I been saying?" and she said, "Chrissy I've been saying Sonntag, Montag, Dienstag, Geburtstag. I've been saying Heute ist Geburstag to Ash every Wednesday."

Geburtstag is in fact the German word for Birthday.

Anyway happy every single Wednesday is my mom's birthday Wednesday.

[phantomrose96]

Fun story from my mom just now.

She lives alone with her dog Ash. And as one does when just living with a pet, she has a lot of made-up nonsense she just says to him, including a lot of made-up vaguely German sounding words.

And the German isn't completely random. Some of it is hold-over actual German from when she (temporarily) lived in Switzerland 32 years ago.

She told me, "Most days I'll say to Ash, 'Was ist heute? (What is today?) Heute ist (Today is)'" followed by the day of the week. She also said she was having the damnedest time remembering the German word for 'Thursday.'

Like she could get through "Heute ist Sonntag," "Heute ist Montag," "Heute ist Dienstag"... and blank out at Thursday. Until finally she decided, screw it, googling it! (Thursday is Donnerstag, btw.)

"Except," she told me, "I googled it, and it went Sonntag, Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, and I went 'Mittwoch? What the hell is Mittwoch?'"

Mittwoch is in fact Wednesday. But that's not the day of the week my mom was tripping on. She knew (thought she knew) Wednesday. So my mom was left going "Okay then what the hell have I been saying?" and she said, "Chrissy I've been saying Sonntag, Montag, Dienstag, Geburtstag. I've been saying Heute ist Geburstag to Ash every Wednesday."

Geburtstag is in fact the German word for Birthday.

Anyway happy every single Wednesday is my mom's birthday Wednesday.

[phantomrose96]

Jack Fenton is fascinating to me. Man had the determination and the intellect to find a whole ass extinct plant from a ghost hunting legend for his wife to make her happy. They are obsessed with it, but he got rid of it instantly upon learning it made his son sick. He had the brilliant idea to dispose of the plant that feeds on death and decay in the landfill. Absolutely brilliant. No notes.

(Exclusion Zone / ao3 link)

In his slight defense...! The plants Weren't Supposed To Do That. I mean hey, you spend your whole career studying dead things, maybe you stop considering the way living things might evolve Who said that.

[phantomrose96]

Ngl something from the descriptions of Jack and Maddie when they were working late in the lab and when Jazz saw their eyes were red and sticky made me think at first that their instant acceptance of Danny’s allergy was somehow caused by the blood blossoms. Like the blossoms somehow infected them and were controlling them to trick Danny and lure him into the house. It just felt too good to be true! And it was so sweet when Danny realized he was loved and had a new appreciation for getting his life back 🥺 the scene with him hugging the box ghost was perfect! The Fenton’s caring about each other so much really makes me root for them more, like there’s hope that they’ll find a way to make it better because they’ll try their best for each other (hopefully it’ll be enough, please be enough)

I also really related to Jazz’s stress with cleaning everything and feeling like there’s this unbeatable contamination that everyone else is oblivious to. “The poison the poison the poison the poison the poison the poison in their house,” “It felt futile. The whole house was tainted,” “Jazz wondered if there was a way to pass slices of pizza into the lab without the taint of the blood blossoms infecting her own skin. The thought sat hollow in Jazz’s heart. Maybe she wouldn’t try to hug Danny tomorrow.” <- sentences that are so real and so painful. You did such an amazing job with Jazz’s perspective!

(Exclusion Zone / ao3 link)

AU where the Fentons brought home Zombie-Ant Brain Fungus and this is actually an entirely different kind of cautionary tale.

SDjbjhbds but no actually!! In all this, Danny's miscalculation (well his first miscalculation) was failing to consider just how happily his parents will jump from one absolute fixation to the next. The Blossoms ABSOLUTELY consume their lives for a week but, it does not have to be the Blossoms. There's a laundry list of other things the Fentons want to build or experiment on or dissect. Nothing about the Blossoms make them more valuable than Danny's well-being. And--while he's used to being under their ghost-hunter interrogations as Phantom--Jack and Maddie have no desire to interrogate their son. All that matters is he's hurting, he's being kept from home, and he was enduring all that to spare their feelings. No hesitation, the Blood Blossoms are GONE.

And I really liked that being the twist (okay the first twist). Like I'm never beating the angst-fic allegations; all the early beats are building up this tension and expectation that this will go poorly. Only to result in immediate acceptance, immediate remedy of the problem. No dissection! No vivisection! Is this even a PR96 fic?

But I didn't do it to just be a "haha you thought" plot twist. I did it because this story at its heart is about the Fenton family loving each other. It's Danny not wanting to ruin his mom's Mother's Day gift. It's Jazz doing everything in her power to protect her brother. It's Jack and Maddie throwing away their experiment instantly for the well-being of their son. It's Danny lying in the back seat of Jazz's car going "Oh. They love me." Because the love is there! It matters! But is it enough to fix what's been set in motion?

(Also writing Danny hugging the Box Ghost was really funny to me. The Box Ghost was explicitly name-dropped earlier when talking about the total absence of ghosts from Amity Park, and with the Blood Blossoms in play you ARE supposed to be a bit worried for the ghosts who are named but suddenly no longer seen. So the Box Ghost showing up trying to pull some stupid bullshit is Danny going "oh thank god. he's okay. now I can kick his ass.")

Also aaaahh I'm glad you liked Jazz's part!! Like I think there is a very special kind of horror and anxiety for "you know the wrongness is all around you but you don't feel like you can clean it." And that feeling of contamination isn't something Jazz can successfully clean away, because her brain is inventing it--and even if she's correct, she doesn't have the ability to sense the Blossoms or the pollen for real, so there's no way to feel clean for real. Danny was about to turn her into the Yellow Wallpaper Lady if he made her deal with it any longer.

[phantomrose96]

me reading the tags people put in my notifications

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[phantomrose96]

DO MAKE HIM - HE'S GAY AND FRIENDLY!

[phantomrose96]

The funniest fanfiction reading experience I had was reading A Breach Of Trust and thinking it was the same thing as the Attic AU. Everytime something bad happened to Reigen I was like “Damn…and he’s gonna be trapped in that attic later😔”