#had to think tobias would prioritize convenience/time first

[tobiaswexley]

@rhianwells asked 🍕 for a moodboard about my muse’s favorite foods

[genevievemd]

The Newlywed Game: Round 11

A/N: Not gonna lie, I'm a little excited to answer my own questions lol As always, a huge thank you to our queen of the newlywed game, the icon that brought us Allensey, @jamespotterthefirst! Wedding Wednesday would not exist without you. Also, I best be seeing Allensey answer these, ma'am!

For Both:

1. Where did you go on your second date?

Genevieve: Our patient's art show, although we could count the opera, but I was sad and you were -- Ethan: No. Those were not dates, G. Gen: You asked me out, there for they're dates. Ethan: No, no, no. If we go by this logic, our first date would have been that time you followed me to Derry's and we people watched. Gen: Exactly. Ethan: *pinches the bridge of his nose* Our second date was the drive in theater in Meldon, they were playing grease. You wore your hair like Sandy in the beginning of the movie, it was cute. Gen: Had to be on theme. But let's be honest, we only watched like fifteen minutes of the movie, the rest of the time we made out in your car. Ethan: *smiles wide*

2. What is their pet name for you? Do you have a favorite? Do you have a least favorite?

Ethan: She calls me 'babe' most often, it's not my favorite. Gen: Let me guess, your favorite is chief? Ethan: No, it's not. It's "my love". You don't use it often, but when you do, the look in your eyes... it's my favorite, hands down. Gen: *heart eyes* Ethan uses a variety for me; darling, sweetheart, love, baby on the super rare occasion. Also, G, which didn't start as a pet name, but it's kind of turned into one. He's like one of the few people in the world that call me G, and that makes it special, too. Ethan: Which is your favorite, "baby"? Gen: Rookie, because it didn't come from my name, and it's not the usual pet name. It's just for me. Second favorite is "baby" because it's just *fan's self*. And no least favorite.

3. What is their silliest fear?

Gen: Interns. Ethan: I'm not afraid of interns! Gen: Social interaction? Ethan: Will you -- Gen: *smirks* Ethan: Her silliest fear is the dark. Gen: How is that silly? Lots of people are afraid of the dark. Ethan: Children, maybe. And it's a situational fear, you're completely fine in the dark in our home, but you're petrified of the dark outside. Gen: You can't see what's there! There could be a ghost or a zombie, or a creepy dude coming to kidnap me. Ethan: We live in a city, that's never dark enough for something to jump out of the shadows. Gen: Stop judging me, old man.

4. How often do you go on dates together? Do you think it’s enough or would you like to go out more often?

Gen: Once a week, we have a "date night". More often than not, though, it's just us making dinner and watching a movie or something. But it's a night where we put our phones in the other room and just spend time together. Ethan: We try to go physically out on a date every couple of weeks. Gen: And it's never enough. Ethan: I know, I need to get better at prioritizing our relationship. Gen: No, I meant, like, no matter what it'll never be enough. We could go on a date every night of the week and I'll still feel like it's not enough. You're my person, I wanna be with you all the time. Ethan: *looks at G like she hung the moon* I love you. Gen: I love you.

5. What was the first thing your spouse said after the proposal?

Gen: My name. Ethan: Because you were standing there, unmoving. I was getting concerned. Gen: Like I'd have said anything other than "yes". Besides, I was in a little bit of shock. But after that, I said yes. And then "I love you." And then -- Ethan: I have to call my mom. But that came hours later.

6. If you were forced to marry one of your exes, who would it be?

Ethan: What exactly is the point of this question? Gen: To make you jealous. I'd marry my first boyfriend, Patrick. He's one of the sweetest guys in the world. Ethan: You answered that way too quick. He's the one I met during your second year, correct? The one visiting his sister? Gen: Yes, that was Patrick. Ethan: *grumbles* Gen: *laughs* Your turn. Ethan: No one. I never even considered marriage until you. Gen: Okay, but you're being forced, therefore, you have to pick someone. Harper? Ethan: No, Camila. Gen: Seriously? Ethan: Seriously. Harper and I, we were great and all, but that was situational, convenient. Camila I had rather deep feelings for, and she's an incredible doctor and woman. I'd pick her. Gen: *pouts* Okay, you're right, I don't like this question, it's stupid. Ethan: *laughs then kisses her cheek* Don't worry, love, I'm sure Tobias would steal her from me again.

Bonus Round:

Speaking of exes, describe each of your spouse’s exes using three words only. Go!

Gen: Cam; smart, philanthropic, inspiring. Harper; intelligent, beautiful, iconic. Anna; funny, compassionate, cheerful. I'm only naming those three, because they're your most serious relationships. If I name all the woman you dated for less than two weeks, we'd be here for like another ten minutes. Ethan: I feel insulted. Gen: Your turn. Ethan: Patrick; polite, lack-luster, tall. Jackson; rude, unintelligent, vain. Ryan; narcissistic, vacuous, cowardly, cruel, predatory -- Gen: Three, babe, they said three. Ethan: Fine, moving on. Nate: small-minded, cynical, disorganized. Gen: How is Nate small-minded? He's a doctor, who works at the Mayo Clinic. Ethan: Because he refused to be sympathetic or understanding to your trauma from Ryan. Therefore, he's small-minded. And a whole host of other words. Gen: *giggles* You hate all of my exes. Ethan: Not all of them, Rookie. I don't hate Patrick. Gen: Fine.

That last one was so fun to do. I love over-protective-hates everyone Ethan. Someday, I'll write the fic where he meets Patrick, takes place like right before the attack in book 2.

(tagging separately because that seems to be the only way tags work lately)

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about adhd Rachel.

So, for context, when I was a small baby human reading these for the first time, I saw Rachel and I was like “!!!!!!”, you know, as you do when you see a character who kind of Speaks to whatever undetermined weirdness you have going on at the time.  And then I was a slightly older baby human whose school reputation was Somewhere Between Charming Young Genius And Possible Future Gangster--by which I mean that I have punched many a person in my public school career and consequently had a lot of people who were afraid of me and not many close friends.  And I connected even more to Rachel then, because listen: it’s so easy to just fight, and fight, and fight, when you’re too depressed and angry to control overwhelmingly impulsive thoughts.  Now I’m an adult and I know that a huge part of my problem was undiagnosed ADHD (in addition to just being...I’m a real angry person you guys, it’s just...how it is), and I went back to reread the Animorphs and I was like “You know who the fuck else has ADHD.”  

I connected to that in Rachel, and I have Evidence.

First things first, you know that...thing in Rachel books where she’ll actually verbally go “this may not be a good idea” once she’s already doing it?  Constantly?  That’s the impulsivity thing in ADHD that you hear about.  It’s not dunking your hand into 160 degree water without realizing that you’re going to burn yourself and being surprised when it hurts, it’s dunking your hand into 160 degree water and your brain going “hey, that’s going to hurt, you’re going to get burned” once you’re already whipping your hand back and yelling and being resigned that it hurts.  That little voice in your head telling you not to do dangerous stuff is still there, it’s just super late to the party.  And Rachel is a fucking thesis on that whole concept.  The first time she morphs grizzly, she picks the morph on impulse because she wants to be big and strong and able to fight back, and once she’s finished the change she goes hmm, this might be a bad idea, I don’t know if I can control this morph under pressure but she’s already done it and they’re in battle and she’s committed.  When Cassie tells her “I’m going to go get help, don’t do anything dumb” in Book 12, Rachel isn’t unaware that jumping down into the croc pit is something dumb, it’s just that the connection between the action and the fact that it’s a bad idea is made once she’s already up on the railing and jumping in.  She knows that morphing into a starfish on a beach full of people in order to retrieve an earring is both stupid and dangerous, but by the time she notices, she’s already committed.  So: uncontrolled impulses, check.  

Incidentally, I always take it kind of personally when people in the fandom read it as...I don’t know, as either Rachel willfully ignoring good sense or Rachel genuinely not knowing a good plan from a bad one.  Rachel knows common sense when she hears it, that’s obvious even if she sometimes prioritizes some other thing.  And more to the point, Rachel is pretty good at combat tactics in the heat of the moment.  Take 22, where she assembles a plan to take down David in the mall--the fact that he had time to prepare the ground doesn’t change the fact that her plan is reasonably tight.  This is something I will bitch about at length when I write up a recap for Book 37, AKA my most hated Animorphs book because it does BOTH of those things to Rachel’s character.  She’s reckless and impulsive, not stupid, and honestly I kind of resent the part of the fandom that confuses the two.

Second of all, Rachel’s emotional responses tend to either be ‘highly controlled and masked with sarcasm’ or ‘wildly out of hand’, which is really typical of girls with ADHD--society tells us to be utterly in control, which means that the emotional lability (...being mercurial, basically) typical of ADHD bursts out in sudden violence or crying or whatever your particular person is prone to.  So, like, take that one time very early in the series where Rachel goes from being totally checked out to slamming another girl face-first into a table.  ...I’m not saying I’ve done that.  But I am saying that one time when I was twelve a guy came up and hugged me from behind and started complaining when I told him to leave me alone and I put him on the floor and dared a teacher to suspend me.  And Marco says, when they’ve all been dragged up to Chapman’s office, that he’s afraid Rachel’s just going to out them to Chapman right then and there because she’s so furious and out of control.  I told a teacher to go to hell, and called another one a moron to his face, and told yet a third one that he couldn’t find his way around a literary analysis with both hands an a torch.  That’s super standard undiagnosed ADHD shit right there, especially since Rachel’s under a lot of pressure.

Third of all, Rachel’s got some focus problems like whoa: she does struggle to focus on the right thing from time to time, but I’m more interested in the wat she exhibits some real hyperfocus.  The main example that springs to mind is the way Cassie describes Rachel shopping in MM4--there’s no war, there’s no outside stressors of life or death issues, and Cassie still talks about how Rachel is absolutely laser focused, to the point of scheming out which stores they’ll hit in what order like a battle plan.  We hear a lot about Rachel with this kind of obsessive focus, to exclusion of all else, often about shopping but also about other things.  Hyperfocus is a little-discussed but extremely common symptom of ADHD, and it really is exactly what it says on the tin.  And Rachel, oh boy, does Rachel ever have it.

Related to the focus thing, there’s this one bit that I read and every time I’m like SAME DUDE, and it’s from that same scene in the mall at the beginning of 22, when Rachel and Ax are forming up to attack.  She believes Tobias is dead, Jake is actively bleeding to death on the floor, the situation could not be more dire--and her brain still goes “hey, that store’s having a sale.”  And Rachel is furious with herself for it, she hates that her brain kicks that bit of information out while everything is so awful, but she just can’t seem to stop it.  That’s the life, man.  #ADHDAesthetic right there.  

Fourthly--I’m realizing that I have more points here than I thought--Rachel’s a fidgeter.  This isn’t really  explicitly stated because the books have such a strict length limit that they’re usually really cut down to the bare bones, but there’s one place where body language is pretty reliably described: barn meetings.  Marco is usually sacked out on a convenient chair, Tobias in the rafters, Cassie doing work, Jake either standing or sitting.  But Rachel’s a pacer.  She’s repeatedly described as pacing, and if she’s not, if she’s sitting with someone, it’s for narrative reasons.  She’s sitting near Marco?  She’s going to smack him, or challenge him to an arm wrestling contest for the dangerous mission, whatever.  She’s sitting near Cassie?  That’s supposed to say something about her emotional state.  

Fifth, Rachel bores easily.  And I mean real easily.  In the Oatmeal Book, she talks about claustrophobia, but one of the things she complains about the most often is being alone in the dark with her thoughts.  For me, that’s the worst thing about insomnia--the inside of my head is only enough to keep my attention for so long, and then I start to lose it, and yeah, it feels like a panic attack, it would be easy to lump in with external claustrophobia.  When she’s taking a day off from school, she only lasts a few hours watching trash TV before she bails out to go flying--this is also related to the fidgeting thing above (7).  When she has nightmares, she gets up and leaves the house.  When Rachel morphs prey animals or motion-attracted predators like cats, it’s easy for her to get lost in the rapid-change thought patterns.  I can’t think of a single time where Rachel gets put on surveillance alone--not because she’s not good at surveillance, but because she can’t be relied on not to get distracted.

I could come up with some other things, but these five plus the idle descriptions she throws around about ‘racing thoughts’ and ‘I lost my temper and I just couldn’t think anymore’ would get her an ADHD screen from any respectably competent therapist.  Throw in “incredibly high performing academically but with some disciplinary issues” (13 and 5 respectively) and “exhibits suicidally reckless impulses even in non-battle life” (literally every other book), and she’s a shoo-in.

The short version here is that my headcanon that Rachel has severe ADHD is summed up by two books: 12 and 32.  

In 32, the two Rachels are both poster children for ADHD--Mean Rachel is impulsive, loud, temperamental, unfocused, and generally uncooperative (you and I all know the stereotypes come from somewhere, a lot of people who manifest ADHD like that are pretty uncooperative, and I say that as one of them), and Wimp Rachel is just as temperamental on the other side of the spectrum, forgetful, easily distracted, genuinely scared of her own impulses and intrusive thoughts, and, you guessed it, kind of uncooperative (again, the stereotypes come from somewhere).  You don’t put those two people together and get one non-ADHD person, you put them together and get a person whose symptoms have settled out to a degree of homeostasis.

And in 12, beyond all the really impulsive shit Rachel does and the way she approaches everything from the angle of “this is my fault because I’m not in control of myself,” which, oh my god, honey, same, but no it’s not, Cassie morphs Rachel.  And what does Cassie say about being in Rachel’s head?

“I’m having the worst time trying to control this morph!”

“You’re having trouble being me?  What could be hard about that?”

“It’s this brain of yours.  It keeps trying to make me do really dumb things.”