Whale, hello there. Apologies for the long wait for Michael Vey chapter two. You know how it is, long depressive episodes, adopting an Emotional Support Animal, reigniting a Pokemon hyperfixation. The works. But my burning hatred for this book series called me back to continue this "fanfic". As such chapter two has been published, picking up directly after the class Michael and Ostin were taking at the end of the last chapter.
I should mention that there are a lot of things that bother me about the original work, beyond just how bad the writing itself is; the Tourette's syndrome is underutilized as a story device, there's far too many characters we're expected to keep track of, there's not much explicit disability representation outside of Michael, Ian, and Jade Dragon when the electricity powers are connected to Michael's Tourette's, and I could go on and on and on.
But the issue I really wanted to address (and the one that makes me the most upset) that shows up in chapter one, two, and most likely further chapters, is Ostin. You may notice that my Ostin uses they/them pronouns and is black. This now I am inexperienced with writing race, so I'm doing my best there, but I do have lived experience with autism. In the original books, Ostin is clearly written as autistic, and he is bullied by almost every character that interacts with him, including Michael and Taylor. It irks me to the utmost extent that Evans's Michael treats Ostin as an annoyance rather than his only friend in the entire school. He rolls his eyes at Ostin's "bones" fist bumps, teases him about clogging (which is a genuine skill and very fun; I've taken tap dancing myself at one point), and is just generally a jerk.
So I'm hoping my Michael and Ostin will be a much better pair of friends, as they share queerness as well as both having a disability. I'll do my best to represent the facets of their characters as best as I can. If you read this, thank you, you're the best, and I hope you enjoy. :)