I’m imagining the epilouge but with Neville’s kid instead of Harry’s.
Sensibly Named Child:
Dad, what if the hat puts me in Slytherin?
Neville:
Then it means you really are a Slytherin. Do you have any idea how hard I begged to be a Hufflepuff? How hard I argued with the hat against Gryffindor? And you know what, it turns out the hat was right and I pulled the sword out of the hat and killed the snake. It's a magical hat and you're an eleven year old who thinks Axe works to attract girls. You know nothing, listen to the hat.
i know that generally when it comes to scarecrow’s fear toxin/gas/whatever the favored interpretation is scary hallucinogen/really bad trip with a lot of “oh no everything is monsters” BUT LIKE personally i think it would be interesting if he just bypasses all of that and skips right to triggering the physiological mechanisms of fear. like if he’s isolated the part of irukandji syndrome that causes feelings of impending doom, or found a drug that kicks the
amygdala
into high gear to trigger panic attacks (i know that i am oversimplifying this but it’s comic book logic so whatever). so instead of
EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE MONSTERS TRYING TO KILL ME AND THAT’S TERRIFYING
it’s
I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M SO SURE YOU’RE ALL TRYING TO KILL ME BUT THE WORST PART IS THE ANTICIPATION, MY WHOLE WORLD IS JUMPSCARES NOW
but tbh my reasons are mostly self-indulgent because i would find it hilarious if batman got gassed and then kicked crane’s ass anyway, leaving crane under the impression that batman is immune to fear, but actually batman is just already hypervigilant and prone to catastrophic thinking and has a lot of practice dealing with panic attacks
“Batman doesn’t notice he got fear gassed because he just assumed he was having an episode and ignored it” is my whole Batman aesthetic tbh
