#justice for Jenny

[ryukisgod]

[antrunner]

someone sent me a request to draw jenny YES!!!!! ill do that this evening oh my god im so excited

im gonna push my "jen and kyle are adoptive siblings and never dated" propaganda until i die. peace and love 💚

[wwprice1]

Another 10 covers for November that kick ass!

[goodomens-girlie]

I want what they have

[duckwnoeyes]

I'm not sure how to articulate it, but I am obsessed w Giles/Willow and Buffy/Jenny being direct mirrors of each other and yet they all refuse to accept it. Giles wishes he could see himself in Buffy, bc yk that's his kid. But in actuality the two of them aren't all that similar, (aside from being gay for their arch nemesis). Buffy, as the kid forced into a destiny she doesn't want, is so much more like Jenny Calendar, which Lord knows is a fact Buffy is very uncomfortable with.

And then there's Willow wanting to see herself in her favourite teacher (Jenny Calendar) but actually being pretty much a direct mirror to Giles. To Ripper. While Giles is so adamant they are nothing alike, so there is no need to monitor what Willow is getting up to in regard to magic. Until the moment she drags her best friend back from heaven and tries to end the world and Giles is forced to acknowledge that Willow is the true successor to his legacy. (Gay and maybe sometimes evil)

(This makes Buffy and Willow a direct parallel to Jenny and Giles. Which could mean nothing.)

[thecurioustale]

My Thoughts on Jenny Nicholson and the Star Wars Hotel

I watched Jenny Nicholson's four-hour "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel" video essay that YouTube showed me recently but which till now I couldn't bring myself to construct a day around. She's in great form here, and I'm pleased to say I go back as a fan of her work all the way to her Friendship Is Witchcraft days. (Blows my mind that she voiced all Mane Six characters, and others, so well.)

Anyway, long story short, Disney built a Star Wars hotel at Disneyworld in 2022 that was themed as a voyage on a spaceship, then proceeded to charge thousands of dollars per person per night, the most expensive publicly-available Disney theme park hotel experience by miles and miles, and then closed the hotel in 2023 after having spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Jenny went into the experience as a member of the core target demographic and spent four hours talking about all the ways it was an underwhelming or outright disappointing experience.

Her video reminded me of Hasbro's own misadventures in corporate greed with Magic: The Gathering, which has suffered in recent years from price increases, disengagement from the fan community, and a huge proliferation of product spam—i.e. more products overall, more ways to buy a given product (e.g., the proliferation of different boxes, which eventually killed the original draft booster box that had powered Magic for 30 years), and more variants of individual cards within and between products.

Hasbro and Disney are very similar in the economic space they operate in, and also utilize similar business strategies. Disney is essentially the S-tier megacorporation to Hasbro's B-tier, and we have seen many of the same corporate trends play out in both companies.

When it comes to Disney theme parks, they have massively increased ticket prices over the years, well beyond the rate of inflation, and have also implemented advance-scheduling systems for faster access to rides that has made the process of exploring a Disney theme park much less spontaneous and a lot more regimented and stressful.

Disney realized, years ago, that their limited number of theme parks—they only really have two, not counting the various sub-parks: Disneyland on the West Coast and Disneyworld on the East Coast—together with Disney's entrenched status as a cultural icon with lots of goodwill and brand recognition among the public, are vastly underserving public demand, allowing them to inflate the price of a single trip almost arbitrarily, well into the four digits—or even the five-digits if you're taking the family and spending several days.

The Star Wars hotel was Disney's "Magic 30": a product so ludicrously expensive as to incur immediate and universal condemnation by their own fans. It's clear to me what Disney was doing: They'd happily turned the conventional price knob up and up and up for years. Now they wanted to experiment with a fundamentally more expensive product class, basically five to ten times more expensive. They wanted to see if the market could support it. Because the growing disparity of wealth in America, together with America's obscene wealth as a nation relative to the rest of the world, means that it's definitely possible: There are definitely millions of people out there who could book a stay at the Star Wars hotel if they wanted to. And Disney was like "Let's see if they will."

And you know what? I think it could have succeeded. Because there really is an obscene excess of wealth in this country, even though most of us don't have any access to it. And we are a culture whose zeitgeist is ever ravenous for the next big, flashy experience.

But instead the venture failed spectacularly. Why? Because such reckless corporate greed is, itself, usually a sign of deep organizational rot and incompetency among the board and executive leadership. In other words, their hotel failed for the same reason they tried building it in the first place: Disney has grown stupid.

The way it failed, going by Jenny's video, is down to two independent reasons:

An outrageous degree of "penny-wise, pound foolish" thinking;

A fundamental failure to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest.

The former is the more obvious of the two, and what really stood out to me as emblematic of it in this whole boondoggle were two simple thing: 1) The hotel rooms didn't have complimentary Disney+; and 2) the free loaner umbrellas for hotel guests visiting the Star Wars Land in Disneyworld were either so worn-out or so shoddy to begin with that, unless it was a big coincidence, both Jenny's and Jenny's sister's umbrella failed while in use. This was in the context of Disneyworld's most expensive customer experience ever, by a lot, and Disney was nickel-and-diming them. Jenny's video goes into a great depth of detail on the dozens if not hundreds of corners they cut; it was basically everything but the food. The result was an antagonistic relationship between Disney and their hotel guests where almost everything interesting cost more money (usually a lot more money) while almost everything included in the main ticket price was of cheap quality or stingy in its allotment. Every aspect of the whole process, from the scammy vibes of booking a room in the first place, to the pathetic after-care for customers who reported a problem after their stay, was likely to leave a sour taste in the customer's mouth.

When you're paying the most expensive prices in the history of a product category, you really just need to be given an up-front price that includes all or nearly all of it. You'll know what you're in for, and you can make an informed decision, and then it's really just down to the host to provide an experience and level of service that matches those high dollar outlays. But instead, as Jenny pointed out, it's like you're dealing with Spirit Airlines, where you're gonna pay a fee for literally everything beyond sitting your body quietly on the airplane.

Mind-boggling hubris. Disney needs to be broken up for the monopoly that it is, and this is just one more example of how convinced of their own inevitability and supremacy Disney has become.

The other main failure on Disney's part is the subtler one.

Jenny focused on how the Star Wars themed choose-your-own-adventure game, which was at the heart of the hotels' central conceit of "live your own personal Star Wars story," was irreparably dysfunctional. Not only was the app, through which most of the "experience" was conveyed, horribly designed; and not only were the tasks delivered through this app mostly busywork to anyone other than young children, consisting of little more than walking around and scanning inanimate objects; but the storyline's entry points and decision points were completely impenetrable through reasonable means, to the point of seeming arbitrary. Jenny proactively tried and failed to get into her preferred storyline; then tried and failed to get into any storyline; then was automatically sorted into one the next morning; and ultimately ended up having only one (dubiously) interactive story experience over the whole weekend.

She talked about how the tightly-regimented and incredibly full schedule was so mentally and physically draining that on the final night she fled her dinner table fearing she would vomit and had to stand in her hotel room staring at herself in the mirror for a while, to understand her illness (which turned out to be stress-induced exhaustion) and center herself.

She talked about how she didn't get to see a much-coveted music show during dinner on her first night because she was seated behind a giant column.

Really, these things are manifestations of the larger and more fundamental failure on Disney's part to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest, as I put it.

As I was watching her video, two thoughts came to me in this vein:

First was that this whole experience really needed to be "playtested," as we might say in Magic. I mean, I'm sure there nominally was, but whatever playtesting they did was completely ineffective. Good playtesting would have brought most of these issues to light.

Second was that the Disney of today has completely lost touch with the namesake of their industry: hospitality. This would never have happened at a new luxury resort by an established world-class hotelier a century ago. Because they understood the basics. Little things, like hot towels.

I could tell just from Jenny's video that this whole hotel was decided from the top-down by soulless, disconnected corporate suits who blatantly disregarded whatever good suggestions I'm sure the Imagineers® came up with. For the failures to be as expansive and ubiquitous as Jenny's video documented, no doubt the institutional rot extends down at least as far as the project manager level, if not down to individual Imagineers® and beyond, but there have to be at least some good ones, and clearly they were overruled early and often. Whenever Disney's leadership was faced with a decision between anticipating the comfort and pleasure of the guest, and saving a couple bucks on a guest who was literally laying out several thousands of dollars to be there, leadership chose the latter.

They were so arrogant that they believed, without noticing or questioning it (unless Disney's leadership is in fact cartoon evil), that they would tell the customer what constitutes a good experience, and the customer would pay top dollar for it. And so you get a guest experience where customers who are actively trying to pick a given storyline can't get any storyline and are later seated for the dinner show behind a giant fucking column.

It's sad, and we should all be glad that their hotel failed. Not that Disney is likely to learn the right lessons from their failure, but the long-term solution here is for leisure dollars to be directed toward other companies. For the several thousand bucks that Jenny paid, she could have had a true luxury vacation in most parts of the world—and for longer than two nights.

One thing that I noticed during the four hours of her video was that Disney, or at least the people in charge of developing this hotel, didn't seem to understand what constitutes an enjoyable story experience. I am forgiving of the low level of complexity in the various puzzles, since the public is famously stupid plus a lot of these guests are going to be children. But there was so little imagination in the actual plot beats: Chewie sneaks in, gets arrested, and busts out. You get to help some Resistance fighters smuggle their luggage. Like, it's insipid. I mean, ultimately, most pop storytelling is insipid, but what I mean is that the dressings were insipid too. Dressing a story up is what makes stories great, at least at the mainstream level. There was no pomp and flourish; no clever interweaving; no electric events that put people on the edge of their seats. Just walking around on your phone for two days scanning crates and occasionally being in the same room while somebody busts Chewie out of the clink—assuming you even make it to the story events in time, since they often fired early.

The whole thing smacks of rule by committee, too many cooks, and suits suits suits all the way down.

I think it's a sign of the times that this is happening. We are once again in Robber-Baron territory in this land. The big corporations and the oligarchs who run them have become so obscenely rich and so utterly disconnected from ordinary life, and their corporate cultures have become so masturbatory and so officious, that they are increasingly creating products for idealized, phantom audiences. They increasingly don't understand real people or real life.

And we can and should bring the weight of the government down on them, more to break up monopolies and allow new and established competitors to seriously challenge them than to actively punish these companies for making money, but even more so we just need to spend our dollars elsewhere. I mean, I'm speaking hypothetically here; I am poor so none of this even applies to me in the first place.

Hence why, even after inflation, this is still just my two cents.

[viggos-mortensen]

I’m not putting me donkey outside when I’m sad, okay?

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) dir. Martin McDonagh

[dailyjsa]

Just announced: DC is relaunching Justice Society of America with a new JSA ongoing (by Jeff Lemire and Diego Olortegui) as part of the 'All In' intiative.

[c0ry-c0nvoluted]

ZATANNA BRING DOWN THE HOUSE #2 (OF 5) CVRS from ARIEL DIAZ & JENNY FRISON 😍😍

[bi4bihankking]

the girls are fightinggggggggggggg

[hotpinkstaples]

most painful thing about their relationship is that bart really was a stonecold cunt at first, to no fault of his own bc he didn't really understand the concept of family OR community outside of the very rudimentary 'i have dead parents and a gramma.' the fact that jenni understood and tried to get him to like her bc she knew he didn't really understand love/loss/family/community hit hard because yeah.... he DIDN'T understand these things, bc he was alone his entire existence, and his socialization process started with max and the manchester folks because wally could NOT deal with a someone who was the speed demon equivalent of a feral bobcat. but he DID start to learn. he did start to understand that there was more to just the speed he was born with. people matter...... having a cousin who got stranded matters. learning to love and care for that cousin matters. but like everything else, bart's needs and desires were NOT what mattered. to think that this boy grew up to become a man who could run through a crumbling universe to reunite his friends.... and found kon el, the lost boy and bring him back to world where he could find and have a home, even though bart himself was still, in spirit, alone since he'd died during flashpoint. the grief, the inherent LONELINESS he consistently experiences, and yet he didn't let it break him. that's real growth, baybey. bart allen, the man that you are

[cloudtaleblog]

tired of batfamily meets jl... what abt flashfamily meets jl...!! go throw in the mention of time travel!! dimension travel!! literally anything!!!

"and this is my grandkid bart allen (and throw in jenni if ur feeling brave enough) from the future!! he's chronologically like three"

the flashfamily turns in my mind all the time

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Jenny Sparks #3 by Tom King and Jeff Spokes. Cover by Spokes. Variant cover by Christian Ward. Out in October.

"The Justice League arrives on the scene to save the day, but will they listen to Jenny as she warns them this is a threat like no other? Could the heroes be outmatched by the might of Captain Atom in his quest for divinity? Let the games begin!"

[buds-and-baubles]

silly snippets from my wildstorm to dc transfer:

apollo: no, you shouldn't fly if you're still tired. *he stands behind but still at a respectable distance, hands held out with a grin* want the apollo express to help you out?

kon: *he grabs apollo's hands* sure why not, it would be interesting to compare how you fly to claAAAAAAAAAAAAAH *apollo took off flying mid-sentence on that word just to be funny*

midnighter: *stands in the alleyway, bo staff in his hands* oh, for fuck's sake.

tim: *stands on the other side of the alleyway, twirling his bo staff* midnighter, interesting seeing you here. nice weapon, by the way.

midnighter: *he sighs, moving his weapon to one hand* what're you doing here, kid? i'm working.

tim: i'm working too. *gestures to his costume* need any assistance? we can work out some terms for a teamup but i'm sure we can come to an understanding.

midnighter: *he rubs a hand over his face* fine, but only because i know you'll pester me until i agree. you got a paper or something for these terms?

tim: *smiles wide at the 'pestering' comment, nodding his head*

nathaniel adam: *he's walking into the justice league conference room for a meeting*

the rest of the justice league: *discussing the anomaly (the wildstorm transfer), a blurry picture of apollo up on a projector*

nathaniel adam: *flashbacks to armageddon* don't trust any of them. don't trust any of them, especially THAT guy! *points at screen*

the picture: *apollo is kneeling to hold out a cat he rescued from a tree to a teary-eyed kid, halo glowing bright as he smiles*

shen: *stretching out her wings as she sits perched on a rock by the ocean* feel like there's something to be said about a bird and a fish spending time together.

garth: *he's next to her with his legs in the water, kicking his legs to splash* dogs and cats become friends too. if we bind ourselves by what others tell us, we'll never sail away. or so the analogy goes.

shen: huh. *she smiles a little mischeviously, dipping the tips of her wings in the waves to splash him a bit* i'd prefer the analogy 'fly away' personally.

garth: *he's actually happy about being splashed since it moisturizes him* so no pelican analogies then?

jack hawksmoor and city boy: *spider-man pointing meme*

rose tattoo and death of the endless: *spider-man pointing meme*

jenny quantum: you know, you could use your hair as a weapon.

kori: oh, how so? *a mix of intrigue and concern on what she's going to hear*

jenny quantum: like a beautiful flaming jump rope. you don't even have to kill anyone to use it like that.

kori: an excellent reccomendation for future battles to be used in a pinch. thank you, jennifer, i'll be sure to pass the idea along to the titans. *she holds her arms out* do you still want to fly with me?

jenny quantum: absolutely! *jumps into her arms*

jenny quantum and kori: *cue to them flying with jenny in kori's arms, both of them going 'wheeee!'*

dream of the endless: *opens a door, stepping into the garden of ancestral memories* . . . this.. is new...

angie, babs, and natasha irons: *dangerously powerful teamup which the world is forever changed for the betterment of STEM*

midnighter: *takes a step*

cass: *takes a step at the same time*

midnighter: son of a–

cass: *he can't see but she's sticking her tongue out* womp womp.

apollo: *opens the door to his apartment to see the core four standing there* ..i take it this has to do with something nobody else knows about that has happened that you don't want them to know happened?

bart: for legal reasons, no comment.

cassie: that was a comment, bart.

kon: *bashfully scraping one of his boots on the ground* yes.

apollo: *takes a deep breath as he stands aside so they can come in* let's see what we're dealing with.

all four: thank you. *walk inside*

tim: oh hey, m got the new curtains he was mumbling about!

the authority: *murderizes henry bendix again*

jay nakamura: *shocked blinking meme*

the watchtower: *exists*

the carrier: *loud sentient shift ship sounds of upset informal protests*

superman: *he's hovering midair, giving a small wave* mister majestic, good to see you!

mister majestic: *he offers his own wave* i wish it was under better circumstances.

superman: that's why i am here. *he offers an apologetic smile* i'm sorry for what happened to your universe and earth. you did the best you could under those circumstances.

mister majestic: thank you. i know we did, but it doesn't make it entirely easier... on the bright side, we now don't have to worry about earth's god returning to kill us all.

superman: *baffled silence*

superman: come again?

grifter and red hood: *in a metaphorical stare down*

grifter: *twirls his two guns* full offense, you make me look healthy.

red hood: *grips his own two guns tighter* shut the fuck up.

grifter: not even a therapist could fix that. they should dip you again like an easter egg in green dye.

red hood: i'm not going to fall for this attempt to make us fight.

grifter: congratulations, you finally learned limits!

gen13: *staring at teen titans/young justice and titans with wonder in their eyes* we're just like them! *a building explodes behind them*

nightwing and huntress: *whisper bickering about the case they have to work on together because babs told them to*

midnighter: *lands on the ground with his night (escrima) sticks out*

nightwing: *turns around, frowning* the midnighter.

midnighter: nightwing and i'm guessing huntress. with the way you two were whispering, you'd be the worst spies ever.

nightwing: i'd ask you to kill me if i was ever a spy.

huntress: i'd rather throw myself into gotham river than be a spy. even worse if i had to lead them.

apollo, angie and shen: *air support/cav rescuing people after fucking up the people they were fighting*

kon: as thanks for lookin' out for me, i wanted to give you these. *hands him some circular sunglasses with yellow lenses, and a leather jacket that's got his chest symbol on the back of it*

apollo: *he carefully takes both items, putting them on* you really didn't have to, kon-el, but thank you. *he pulls his hair out from the collar of the jacket, posing* do i look, as you say.. funky fresh?

kon: *laughs, nodding his head* the funky and freshest. you wanna pose for a picture together?

apollo: *he nods* how about pictures and lunch in hawaii? i've been meaning to check there out.

kon: the s.s.superboy is at your service! *salutes as he flies off, apollo following right alongside him*

(connected to the previous one) the quantum apartment, san francisco;

midnighter: *gets a notification on his phone, opening it up to pictures of apollo posing in his new stuff with kon in hawaii* . . . *he grins like a shark* that's nice. i think i'm having a second coming out and it's gonna be mes–

angie and shen: *wearing matching knowing but deadpanned smirking expressions * we know.

jenny quantum: *stares at midnighter unblinking* dad two: electric boogaloo, you can't say that everytime dad sends you a selfie. also, gross.

[goodomens-girlie]

she’d eat up the met gala

[weathermanone]

Jenny Sparks 6 (2025) by Tom King & Jeff Spokes

Cover: Jeff Spokes