Summer Media
And Such
I. Summer 2026 Embodies the Id of Dhaaruni’s Media Interests
On May 13, Off Campus came out on Prime and on June 21, House of the Dragon season 3 premiered HBO, and needless to say, I’m the #1 fan of both!
Most of you have no idea what I’m talking about, but like, these are the Off Campus/Briar U couples ranked!
Brenna and Jake
Dean and Allie
Hunter and Demi
Sabrina and Tucker
Hannah and Garrett
Grace and Logan
Summer and Fitz
Conor and Taylor (whose name I almost forgot)
Like to be clear, I didn’t have high expectations for the Off Campus TV show but I hope it lasts long enough to adapt The Risk because like, every girl and woman in the entire Off Campus universe is obsessed with Jake Connelly (and every man in the series is very annoyed about it), even when he’s middle-aged, and he’s even more obsessed with Brenna, which is obviously super hot.
(And, given the JLo of it all, I think Off Campus will last the full 8 seasons lol.)
II. Tony Soprano walked so Lily Van Der Woodsen could run
It will never stop being amusing that on Gossip Girl, Lily was a better parent to Chuck than to either of her biological children1, and she was always a much better character and even a person than she was a parent.
Also, Nate Archibald is the best, and the older I get the more I appreciate him. Given that it’s strongly implied he becomes the youngest ever Mayor of NYC after the finale, what if Zohran Mamdani is Nate Archibald in real life????
III. Who is the hottest character in Harry Potter (and why is it Sirius Black)?
This goes double when young!Sirius is fancast as Ben Barnes in The Picture of Dorian Gray (and that general era), and triple when 30-something Sirius is fancast as Ben Barnes after 35. (x)2
IV. If Vanderpump Rules is a cautionary tale about the perils of heterosexuality, The Valley is a cautionary tale about what happens when women have children with men who are terrible, thereby yoking them for life.
V. IYKYK
VI. Europeans seem to believe they’re inherently morally superior to Americans due to their Old World values and in the case of the British, emotional restraint as a social virtue.
“Our female characters have always been casualties of the Sentimental Love Religion, and, in the eighteen-hundreds, they became children, excluded from the domain of sexuality by virtue of prepubescence—or, better yet, by premature death.
[…]
Edith Wharton, in particular, is clearly relevant to his theme yet glaringly absent from his study. Not only did she write a novel about adultery that corresponds almost exactly to the classic seduction schema as he describes it, but her corpus demonstrates that American literature did eventually evolve to accommodate several of the Anglophone novel’s original themes. Once the scions of the old Dutch families had ossified into a sort of aristocracy, we Americans embarked on adulterous affairs just as injudiciously as the Europeans.”
That said, this piece was interesting even though I don’t agree with its overarching implication that Fiedler is correct, that Americans are uniquely scared of growing up. Honestly, the aversion to adulthood feels like it’s predominant among the downwardly mobile, regardless of their country of origin, but that’s not the same thing as designating attributes by nationality.
VII. Season 3 of House of the Dragon premiered last Sunday and Esther and I are seated!!!
I wrote this out yesterday and cried while doing so, but getting it down on paper made me feel a lot more at ease and helped me process how I felt. I don’t think some of my anxieties will ever entirely dissipate but I’d like to believe I’ve conditioned myself to not let them overwhelm me like they used to.
VII. Bridgerton season 5 isn’t back until next year during Pride month, but the point stands!!
I don’t count Scott, her kid with Rufus Humphrey, on account of the fact she parented him even less than she did Eric and Serena.
I wouldn’t have ever thought it but (younger) Timothée Chalamet makes for a pretty good Regulus Black.