#been doing a lot of things left handed lately and i’m definitely developing more motor skills with it

[aurosoul]

fencing update: still can’t win against my bf but I scored a point off a successful feint today 🤺 skills are growing again…..

#incessant meowing #still fencing lefty too #been doing a lot of things left handed lately and i’m definitely developing more motor skills with it #anyways love 2 swordfight love the psychological mind gamesmanship of it all #also I LOVE MY BF EHEHRHE >:))))) 💖💖💖💖

[thestarsociety]

hey there, hero

Rating: T

Word count: 4.5k

Content warnings: mild blood/injury, likely inaccurate medical procedures

Summary: five times kira greeted bella, and one time bella greeted her back.

: : : : : : : : 1 : : : : : : : :

Bella pulled at the edge of her gloves, adjusting her stance on the roof as she observed the Citadel Solutions complex down below. It was walled (which, really, was no surprise, considering the name), but she had found a spot on a building high enough up that she could watch.

Something was happening in there. She knew it.

She had forgone her usual bright blue and yellow attire for a mostly black outfit. After all, Blink, local hero and above-the-board actor, couldn't be caught here. But, Bella was fairly certain she could get in easily with some well-timed teleports. She had a labcoat stashed in her bag that was at least somewhat similar to the garb of the engineers inside. Similar enough, she hoped, that they would let her pass by, once she was in.

She'd spent this stakeout watching the movements in and out, trying to time her entrance so she could get in with the least fuss. She was almost sure she had it. She took a deep breath, and repeated the plan like a mantra. Get in, find what they're up to, disappear. You can do this. You can do this. You can do th—

Boots touched down onto the roof behind her.

"Hey there, hero. What brings you to this fine rooftop?"

Bella startled, instinctively teleporting behind the newcomer. "Wh– who– how did you know I was here?"

The newcomer spun around to face her, tilting her head slightly and crossing her arms. She was slightly taller than Blink, and wearing a sort of armored suit. A hard shell mask covered the bottom half of her face, but her dark eyes were amused. She had warm brown skin, and thick wavy hair that fell past her shoulders, just above the backpack she seemed to be wearing.

Most eye-catching, however, were her gauntlets. They were bulky, covering her entire forearm, and when she moved her hand, Bella could hear the whine of motors.

In short: definitely dangerous.

"Hey, whoah, no need to break out the powers," she said, wiggling her fingers slightly. The motors whined. Bella swallowed. "Anyway, I asked first. So." She stepped towards Bella. "Why are you here?" The mirth drained out of her voice, replaced by a steely seriousness.

"Ah..." Blink floundered for a second. "Just... came up to enjoy the view," she said. It was... a plausible excuse. It wasn't like nobody had ever spent time on top of a building for a view before.

The stranger just looked even more amused. "You sure? 'Cause the locked door would say otherwise," she said, cocking her head towards the door which did, in fact, read "NO EXIT/ENTRY" in large red letters.

"Euhh..." Bella clenched and unclenched her fingers. Purple sparks began to accumulate, swirling around her feet. "I..."

There was a snap, and Bella fell onto her bed.

Quinn spun around from where he was sitting in her chair, a red lollipop in his mouth. "Oh, you're back early. How'd it go?"

Bella covered her face with her hands and groaned.

: : : : : : : : 2 : : : : : : : :

Fighting has never been Bella's strong suit.

She'd gotten better at it, sure, thanks to experience and sparring with Quinn. Her battle strategy didn’t consist of "teleport away from punches and hope for the best” anymore. But she still didn’t like it.

Case in point, feeling like she's totally floundering as she tried to fight a dozen robot drones. She elbowed one that approached behind her, then teleported three feet above one in front of her, letting gravity (and her steel-toed boots) do the work for her. She got into the rhythm of it, kicks and punches and smartly-timed teleports becoming a dance that she weaves and bobs to.

However, she's not a fighter, and when fighting on a rooftop, it turns out that drones sometimes do have a strategy.

Corner her towards the edge of the building.

Every time she tried to fight her way away from the edge, the bots herded her towards it. What they lacked in individual power they made up for in combined might.

Then, the worst happened.

She tripped.

Her scream lodged in her throat as she fell though the air towards the hard ground below. Wind whipped around her, hair flipping into her eyes as she frantically tried to gather her powers, visualizing somewhere safe and grounded and––

The momentum around her stopped as Bella was slammed into by someone flying through the air. Arms circled her knees and back and Bella opened her eyes to see––

Her.

The girl bridal-carrying her grinned, the edges of her dark eyes crinkling. "Well hey there, hero," she said. "Hold onto me. Don't want to drop you." Bella looped her arms around her neck and dared a look down at the ground below. They were. High up. So she kept her gaze on her unlikely savior.

"Why did you—"

"I'm a hero," she said easily. "Heroes don't let pretty girls fall off rooftops." She glanced down at Blink. "Uh, and if they did, they would catch them out of the air."

Bella's breath hitched. Her face flushed, and she was silently happy that her mask covered her cheeks. "Thanks," she mumbled, averting her eyes from her savior's face.

"Your ears are red." Bella could hear the stupid smirk on her face. "Let's get you on solid ground, shall we?"

Before Bella could say anything in reply, the stranger boosted whatever mechanism made her fly, and the wind whipped even faster. Bella buried her head in her shoulder.

When they landed and brushed themselves off, the armored girl turned to Blink. "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot." She extended a hand. "I'm Cavalier."

Blink didn't move. "...As in, arrogant?"

"As in, horse-riding knights." She tapped the Citadel Solutions logo, a horse, on her chest. Blink frowned. Of course she was with Citadel.

"Shouldn't that be Cavalry?"

"The force as a whole is Cavalry. Just one is a Cavalier. Also, c'mon, can you just shake my hand?"

Bella took her gauntleted hand reluctantly. "Blink." she offered.

"Charmed, I'm sure. Can I ask what you were doing? Those bots aren't meant to attack people.” Blink opened her mouth. “Also, would be nice if you didn't disappear on me again. I did just save you."

"I can handle myself," Bella bit back. "I have powers."

Cavalier shrugged. "You were falling pretty fast." She cocked her head. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the Citadel cell tower on that rooftop, hm?"

Bella's breath hitched. It did. Citadel Solutions had recently developed and installed cell tower devices that would monitor and report "suspicious metahuman frequencies". Essentially, anti-meta spyware. Bella and Quinn were intent on destroying them. Her stomach tightened. "I... can't tell you that."

Cavalier started at her flatly. "So, that's a yes."

"Listen, they're horrifyingly unethical!" Blink burst out. "Spying on metahumans? For no reason? It's ridiculous! We aren't inherently dangerous!"

Cavalier cocked her head. "Blink, just last week, a pyrokinetic couldn't control their powers and created thousands of dollars in property damage."

Bella threw her arms up. "I know! I was there! I am extremely familiar with what happened. So familiar, in fact, that I was the one who diffused the situation!"

Cavalier's eyes widened.

Bella continued on her tirade. "So I know that the solution isn't surveillance. Jamie just needed someone to talk to. Someone who knows what it's like. He needed help, not to be stopped by some kind of armed force," she spat.

"Okay, but one situation doesn't cover all of it. Citadel is trying to help people, to make the city better, just like you are."

"The intent behind it doesn't matter. This is going to impact metahumans everywhere. It's not okay."

Cavalier stood for a moment, her jaw opening and closing a couple times. Her eyebrows were furrowed. Finally, she hummed. "Okay. Thanks for not disappearing on me." She turned her back to Blink, getting ready to take off.

Before she left, she looked over her shoulder back at Blink. "I'm... not gonna report this. Just so you know. Thanks for your thoughts."

Her repulsors built to a high whine, and she lifted into the sky.

: : : : : : : : 3 : : : : : : : :

Blink hadn't seen Cavalier all night. They had gotten into a rhythm of patrolling together over the past few months: they worked better as a team than on their own, and games of rooftop tag always made it more fun.

Their first patrol had been awkward, for sure. Blink has never approved of what Citadel does, but when they're not pushing morally dubious tech, Cavalier was helping people. So when Cavalier approached her on one of her regular patrol routes to ask about "pooling their resources" since "I save people, you save people, really, we're on the same side, here," Blink and Signal accepted.

Through these shared patrols, they'd grown much closer. There was something about the late nights spent together that allowed their conversations to flow, to share their thoughts easier. Blink had grown to appreciate Cavalier's humor and wit, and cared about her quite a bit. Through conversations about possible team names (Cavalier was set on 'Starlets', but Bella was partial to 'Moonlighters' and Quinn to 'The Star Society'), things that happened at school (though they were both careful to never mention names), or even Citadel projects, Bella saw Kira as a total person and not just an extension of Citadel. She agreed with a lot of Bella's criticisms of Citadel, and Bella admitted where they did legitimate good.

She knew Kira now. Knew that she was laughed loud and cared louder, that she would quote random lines from things Bella had never heard of, that when she smiled, the edges of her eyes would crinkle.

Nowadays, they would patrol together nearly every night. Quinn would sometimes rib her about "not giving away team secrets," but Bella trusted Kira. Which was strange.

Blink was worried. Cavalier had a tendency to flake off, sometimes, but she would always at least shoot her a message. Today had been radio silence.

She completed her route alone, as the sun set low below the sky and the few stars that weren't obscured by light pollution made their appearance. Once she was done, she went to one of their favorite spots: the top of a building that was taller than all the rest in the area, so they could see everything, but couldn't be seen.

Sure enough, Blink found Cavalier sitting on the edge of the building, her head resting on her knee and her mask set on the ground as she looked over the blinking city lights below. This didn't seem to be her usual vigilant watch. She looked... tired. Contemplative.

"Hey."

Kira looked up at her, her head not moving from its rest on her knee. "Oh. Hey, Blink." She sounded exhausted. Her shoulders were slumped.

"What, no 'hero'?" Blink said, trying to lighten the mood.

Cavalier huffed a little laugh. "You know you're my hero." There was a smile in Kira's voice now, at least.

Bella sat next to her, letting her legs dangle and peeling off her mask. She looked at Kira from the side. She still hadn't moved. Her eyes seemed fixed a million miles away, as the lights of the city reflected in them. Thousands of pinpoints of light: windows, passing cars, neon signs, like stars in a dark sky. The glow brushed the planes of her face, accentuating the shadows beneath her eyes.

"Hey," Bella murmured. "What's up?"

Kira smiled a little. "Us?" Her voice cracked as she spoke.

"I am completely sure you've said that joke before," Bella said softly.

Kira's smile softened. "I think you're right. ...You usually are."

They sat for a while, watching the city. (Really, Kira watched the city while Bella watched Kira, and occasionally the blinking red cell tower.)

"I don't think I can do this. I don't know if I'm made for it." Kira confessed quietly. Her eyes were still fixed on the city.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," her voice wavered. "I mean, I don't know if I'm a good hero. If I can be a good hero. I know the kind of person my parents want me to be, what Citadel wants me to be, even what you want me to be. But I don't know what I want to be or–– or if I even have the ability become any of those people."

She sniffled.

Bella took a deep breath. "Kira," she said gently. "I've thought a lot of different things about you in the past. You know that. I've made sure that you know that. But something that has always stayed the same is this:" Bella turned so she was facing her. "Kira, you have proven to me a million times over that you are a hero. You're a good hero. No matter how much I've argued and fought with you about Citadel, about the Cavalry, whatever. I know Kira. And Kira is a hero."

Kira tilted her head towards her, and Bella could see stars reflected in the tears pooled in her eyes.

"Listen to me. The only person I want you to be is you. I like you. Whatever kind of hero you end up becoming–– and you are a hero, trust me ––I will want you to be that person. No matter what."

Kira sniffled, her lip quivering. She surged forwards, wrapping her arms around Bella's torso. "Thank you," she said, muffled into her shoulder. Bella held her until her breathing became more even, until her breath stopped shuddering in her ribcage, tracing circles on her back.

When Kira pulled back, their legs still intertwined, she looked up at her, eyes huge. "Thank you. Again. I needed to hear that."

Bella smiled at her. "It's just the truth."

"I– god. You're so good. I think I like you way too much." Kira sniffled. "Also, uh, all that stuff you said, about 'I like you no matter what?' Um. Ditto. Me too. I care about you. You're good people."

"You're good people, too," Bella said. She was sure she was red all over.

"Your ears are red," Kira murmured. "Hey, you ever think we're moving too fast? Like, I'm here spilling my guts about everything and how much I like you, and we've bandaged each other up more times than I can count, but I don't even know your favorite movie or your last name––"

Bella cut off her increasingly panicked ramble, stilling one of her shaking hands at the wrist. "My Neighbor Totoro. Jennifer's Body is a close second. And Vogel."

Kira blinked. "Iron Giant. And Singer-Veturi."

"Listen. We have plenty of time to move slow. Let's get dinner and see a movie. This Friday."

"Is that a date, Vogel?" she said coyly, testing the name out. She blinked up at her through her eyelashes.

Bella smiled, angling her head just as coyly. "If you want it to be."

Kira snorted, and they both broke out into laughter.

"I do," Kira said, without a hint of sarcasm. "I really, really do."

They stared at each other for a moment, grinning, before Kira took the hand that Bella was holding and cupped Bella's cheek. "Hey, can I––"

Bella nodded vigorously. "Please."

Kira leaned forward, and their lips connected.

: : : : : : : : 4 : : : : : : : :

Bella was inches away from slamming her head into her calculus notes when her phone pinged.

"Oh thank god," she mumbled.

Kira Cavalier: hekp'

Kira Cavalier shared a location with you.

Kira Cavalier: please it's serious thifs timr

Bella's heart caught in her throat. She tapped the location into her maps app threw her phone onto her bed, yanked her costume on in record time, and checked for landmarks around Kira's location. Locating a bakery on the street she was familiar with, she grabbed the first-aid kit just in case and teleported onto the roof.

She landed in a three-point-stance, immediately jumping up and looking for any sign of Kira. She grimaced at the familiar sight of a Citadel device on a nearby roof, but no sign of Kira.

"K—" what would she say? Kira? Cavalier? Either could be compromising to her identity. Eventually, she settled on yelling "K?! Are you here?"

Her phone pinged in her pocket.

Kira Cavalier: alleywy

Bella bounded towards an alleyway, leaping across it when she saw no one there. She silently thanked Kira for goading her into playing rooftop tag all those times. She was an expert at traversing rooftops now.

She saw a flash of purple in one of the narrower alleyways. She immediately blinked down. Purple sparks rained around her as she landed. She gasped.

There was a distinct coppery smell in the air. Kira was slumped against the wall, one gauntlet pressed against her side, where red was leaking through, staining her suit and her gauntlet. When she touched down, Kira smiled up at her weakly. "Hey there, hero." She tried to raise a hand to wave, the motors whirring, but she winced and lowered it gingerly.

"Oh my god." Bella dropped to her knees, kneepads slamming onto the concrete. "Why are you covered in blood? What happened? Can you move?"

"Uh, in order:" her voice was strained. "Sexy reasons, I fought some drones, and, uh, no. That's why I called you."

Bella began opening the first-aid kit. "Couldn't you call someone from Citadel? The Cavalry?"

Kira looked her in the eyes. "I was fighting drones, birdie. I was dismantling Citadel property." Before Bella could say something in reply, she continued. "I wiped 'em, don't worry. They won't be too retributive. Citadel won't know."

"That's not..." Bella said softly. "Why?"

Kira closed her eyes. "Milagro. That kid we saved last week. She's a metahuman and she lives here. She would qualify for surveillance. I couldn't..."

Something curled in Bella's chest. "Hey, listen. We're gonna make things right, okay?"

Kira looked at her and smiled. "Okay."

"Let's do this not in an alleyway, okay? I'm gonna teleport you to my room."

Kira sniffed. "Okay."

Bella wrapped her arms around Kira as best as she could, gathered her powers, and they popped in a shower of sparks.

Back in her bedroom, Bella gently placed Kira in her spinny chair. Kira protested weakly. "'M gonna get blood all over your nice chair."

Rooting through the closet, Bella glanced back. "It's fine. Honestly, Quinn will probably be more upset than me."

"Man likes his chairs." Kira said absently, head lolled against the headrest.

Bella peeled her mask off and dragged the larger first-aid bag out from her closet, unzipping it and pulling out the relevant materials. "I think you're gonna need to take off the armor," she said. "Is that possible."

"Mmhmm," she said. "But I think you'll have to help."

She guided her to the release on her mask and pulled it off. Bella set it aside as Kira licked her chapped lips. Bella frowned. "You should drink more water. I'll get you some after, uh." She gestured vaguely.

Kira sniffed. "Thanks."

They went through the process of gingerly removing her armor, Kira typing in the command to release the pressure and Bella peeling it off. Once the armor around her torso was removed, Bella lifted up the tank top above the wound on her side and cleaned it gently with alcohol and cotton. Luckily, it wasn't bad enough that she would need to go to a hospital, but she began securing it closed with butterfly stitches.

"So, how'd this happen? Usually you're a much more capable fighter."

Kira sighed and leaned her head back. "Both me and the drones are Citadel-made," she said bitterly. "My blasters didn't damage them as much as I expected. So they overwhelmed me."

Bella hummed. "We'll have to mod your blasters so they will, hm?"

Kira smiled. "Yeah."

Once the biggest wound was cleaned up, Kira removed the rest of her armor, including her gauntlets, and accepted a change of Bella's clothes. She was bruised elsewhere, but nothing that had to be attended to immediately.

"You should stay here," Bella said. It was selfish. She wanted Kira near her. But she was worried about what would happen if her parents saw her like this. "Tell your parents we're having a sleepover."

Kira shrugged. "They're too busy to notice," she said easily. Bella frowned. Kira just yawned, turning away. "I'm beat. Getting stabbed takes a lot out of you. You coming?" She asked. "Bed's big enough for two."

Bella smiled, filing that away under 'talk about later'. "Yeah. Let me clean up first, and I'll get you some water."

She gathered the bloody cotton and the gross tank top and shoved them into the trash can in the alley. She put the first-aid bag away, and stacked both of their costumes in the closet so prying eyes wouldn't see them.

She blinked downstairs to find her dad. "Hey, Dad, Kira's parents are out of town, so she's sleeping over here."

Her dad looked up from his book. "Oh, has she eaten yet? We have some leftovers we can heat up for her."

Bella nodded. "Yeah, she's asleep upstairs already. She went to bed late last night."

Her dad smiled. "I am never gonna get used to you just teleporting people in and out of here"

Bella rolled her eyes and grinned. "Dad, it has been like eight years since I got these."

"I'm your father! I worry about you! What if you get splinched?"

"Splinching isn't real. Don't worry so much, Dad. I am very responsible." She filled up a glass with water. "Alright, just wanted to let you know that she was over."

"Thanks. You know we like Kira," he said significantly.

Bella coughed. "Thanks, Dad! Goodnight!"

"Night, rabbit!"

Bella returned to her room with the glass. "Your water, my liege."

"Thank you, Sir Vogel." She took the glass and gulped it down, placing it on the nightstand. "Now come to beeeeedd," she said, reaching out her arms.

"Okay, okay!"

: : : : : : : : 5 : : : : : : : :

Bella woke up bleary. So, so, bleary.

She rubbed at one eye, shading a bit of the sun coming through the window. She buried back into the comforter, and rolled over to see Kira on the other side of the bed.

Oh. So last night wasn’t a dream. The injury, patching her up, asking her to stay for the night. Sharing the bed.

Bella sank into the bed and observed Kira as she slept, her chest rising and falling evenly, her lips slightly parted. She looked so different to the girl she'd spoke to on the rooftop months ago. Peaceful. She hoped she'd had even a small part in that.

She still found her just as pretty as she had on that night, though.

Kira began to stir, her eyes screwing shut before blinking open.

"Morning," Bella greeted.

Kira stretched, groaning a little bit. "G'morning." Done with her stretch, she settled on her side, facing Bella and looking into her eyes. She smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling. "Hey there, hero," she said.

Bella couldn't help but smile back.

"Hey," Kira started.

"Hey," Bella echoed.

"You remember that time we were playing rooftop tag—"

"Oh my god." Bella covered her face with her hands.

"Wait, no, c'mon, you don't get to hide from this," she retorted, laughing. "You were it, and you tried to tag me, and you decided the optimal way to do that was by straddling me."

"Listen, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" she groaned. "And I did get you."

"I wanted to kiss you right then and there," she said, her eyes tracing the lines of Bella's face.

Bella started. "Oh. Yeah. Me too, actually," she said, bringing her hands down from her face.

Kira's eyes widened a little, but the expression was soon replaced with a grin. "Well, it's a good thing we have plenty of time to make up for it."

"Mmhmm. Wait, what are you— be careful––"

Kira hooked a leg over Bella's hip, flipping them so she was straddling Bella's hips and her arms were on either side of her head.

"Oh, you asshole," Bella giggled.

"Hey there, hero," Kira said, grinning down at her.

Bella pulled her down for a kiss.

: : : : : : : : +1 : : : : : : : :

They took Bella. They took Bella.

Tensions between the Moonlighters and Citadel had risen, and an ultimatum was presented: metahumans had to be controlled or neutralized. And Blink was the first meta to go.

Kira was so stupid. She should have seen the signs. The blueprints floating around for metahuman containment, the power-nullifying field generators she thought were purely theoretical. She was too busy living her stupid fantasy life of being a Real Hero, of running around the city with her friends.

She fired indiscriminately, warning everyone to get the hell out of her way. She'd spent hours and hours modding her gauntlet blasters, and now not even the Citadel Blast-Resistant Substance™ could withstand it. She descended into the complex, searching for the containment tubes.

And she found it.

Bella, held in a transparent tube, straps around her torso. Her head was lolled forward. The hum of electronics and the beep of a heart monitor filled the room.

Kira slammed the control panel, keying in the combo to release her.

Bella slumped out of the cell, and Kira caught her in her arms. "Birdie," she said, heart racing. "Hey, it's me, talk to me."

Bella sniffled. "Kira?" She looked up at her. She had a bloody nose that had since dried, the blood showing on her teeth as she grinned at her. Kira took a shallow breath in.

"Well hey there, hero," Bella said, eyes sparkling despite her injuries.

Kira's eyes welled up. "Shut the hell up, you're not funny," she said. "We gotta get out of here. Can you do that?"

"Mmphf. Gimme a second." Her head lolled forward again, and she gripped onto Kira's biceps. Purple sparks began swirling around them, and Kira felt the familiar sensation of teleporting, the mild nausea and rubberband snap.

But they were only about a yard away from the tube. Bella sniffled again. "'M sorry," she said.

"Hey, it's okay, that's fine," Kira said, adjusting Bella so she had one arm around her waist, letting her lean her weight on her.

"We'll fight our way out," she said, her arm blaster whining as it charged up and flashed.

#this is the longest single thing i've written. wtf #it's not. super great? but idk i had a lot of feelings about these two and needed to put them somewhere so. *hands you this* #also artfight friends if you drew literally any scene from this i will owe you my firstborn #my FIRSTBORN OK i am so serious #also im not usually a writer so if there's anything glaringly obvious that could be better lmk #writing #birdsong #kira #bella

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Cozy knits, cardamom donuts, and turtledove butterflies

There's something so warm and inviting about hand knitted stuff. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a knitter, but there's really something special about knitting things. With needles and yarn, the possibilities are endless!

This gyroid event is a cozy knitwear theme, a collaboration between Daisy Jane, Tiffani, and Rowan. Collecting gyroids around the camp has been putting me in the mood to knit again, specifically a big project.

It's been years since I've made a sweater but I really feel like making one. Sweaters tend to be a hit or miss with me, which is why I rarely make them. Measurements aren't my strong suit but they're a big deal if you're making clothes. Constant counting as well because you have to make sure you have the exact amount of stitches or else everything's off. Also, it takes commitment to make a sweater, even a simple one, so that's another reason why I stick to simple projects like scarves.

I'm in the process of looking up simple sweater patterns so let's see how long this spark of motivation lasts. Making a sweater can be frustrating and time consuming, but it really is rewarding when it's finally finished.

Tiffani and Rowan are here with us at the camp to join in on the event as well as take a well deserved vacation. I feel like it's been forever since I've seen either one - Tiffani had dropped by the camp a couple years ago while Rowan's been out and about traveling the world. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that they've been working on gyroid designs with Daisy Jane.

I'm glad to see many entourage members thriving, especially after things went downhill with the university. Tiffani started her own fashion line called Stellar where everything's ethically made and a good portion of the proceeds go to charities that help abuse victims. Being a survivor of child abuse, Tiffani puts a lot of time and effort to use her influence to spread awareness and resources to help those who need it.

Rowan, a figure skater, is the co-founder of Stellar. He too grew up in an abusive household and is also an activist for abuse victims as well as the trans community. He's got an interesting story, one of victory as he and a couple friends were responsible for taking down a corrupt fashion design label.

In fact, he's working on a memoir tentatively titled "How I Destroyed Traynor's By Being Super Fake". The title alone sounds like an interesting read. People have approached him for years about writing a book, something he was considering as he had a lot to say about his father and stepmother. By now enough time has passed that his ex-family are beyond caring so he can freely talk about them without dealing with their associates threatening him.

Rowan always had a complicated relationship with his father. His mother died of cancer when he was ten and he never forgave his father for not letting him say goodbye to her. Not too long after that Wilfred married his mistress Caitlin and Rowan gained two step-siblings, Portia and Chad. Wilfred and Caitlin created Traynor's Fashion, an elite luxury label that developed quite a reputation.

Growing up in that household was torture for Rowan, so he left as soon as he could. He found solace in ice skating, an activity he and his mom bonded over. Rowan practiced for hours while his so-called family mocked him and eventually his efforts led to him getting a scholarship with a shot at a career in competitive figure skating.

Unfortunate circumstances and burnout forced Rowan to go back home, where he was known as the loser who couldn't kick it in the real world. Determined to get out, Rowan tried to work his way up in Traynor's, only to remember that hard work at a place like that won't get him anywhere, especially for someone like him. Rowan considered fashion design as a backup if figure skating didn't work out, but Traynor's was the absolute last place he wanted to start over. He only stayed for a few months before getting kicked out because of Portia and Chad.

Rowan would’ve been broke and homeless if it weren’t for aspiring fashion designers Victor, Ella, and Michele. The three were screwed over by Traynor’s and were trying to put together evidence to bring the company down. Victor used to work there before getting thrown under the bus in order for the company to save face. If it wasn't for that alone, Victor would've quit anyway because of the toxic environment and questionable ethics. Michele, another fashion designer, had her career end before it even started when Portia and Chad stole her work and accused her of plagiarism. Ella was the founder of Fairytale Castle, a small fashion company that ended up shutting down because friends of Wilfred and Caitlin were sent to harass her and sabotage her designs.

With Rowan on their side, exposing Traynor’s corruption became a reality. By disguising himself as a snooty fashion designer named Creighton Adcock, Rowan was able to infiltrate the studio. He wore a ridiculous getup and sported an exaggerated English accent - the more fake he came across, the more believable he was. It was pure torture, having to pander to his so-called family but it was so totally worth it.

The big expose took place on an important night for Traynor's and overnight the company fell. Spite and revenge had never been sweeter. Most of the employees as well as Rowan's ex-family were stacked with numerous charges like harassment, assault, embezzling, tax evasion, unethical practices, etc - they got what they deserved. Of course, there was backlash but once that died down, Rowan and the others were ready to move on.

Rowan went back to ice skating, though more for performance than competition - which was the reason why he almost quit in the first place. While posing as Creighton, Rowan had to sit through some shit, so to unwind, he would go out to the ice rink. Being on the ice made him realize how much he missed skating, though not the competition part. Rowan always says he's more of a performer than a competitor - the latter being the reason why he almost gave up because it took away the fun for him.

As for fashion, he does some design on the side like Tiffani. Then the two got together and launched Stellar earlier this year. He considers his relationship with fashion design as a sort of love-hate thing. For obvious reasons Rowan grew to resent it, especially when his father tried to force him into the business. He didn't hate it entirely, but when it's associated with people who failed to give you a good upbringing, it's hard to separate the two. Though since meeting Jamie and going back to skating, Rowan's slowly stepping back into the fashion design world after being on the fence about it for so long.

Joining forces with Tiffani and starting Stellar was unexpected. The partnership just came together and before they knew it, they were coming up with a bunch of ideas together. I honestly was surprised to hear from Jamie that Rowan was working on fashion designs. Then Stellar launched not too long after and it's actually been kinda therapeutic for Rowan and Tiffani.

I'm glad that both of them are out there living their best lives, far, far away from their abusers - most of whom are in jail, thankfully. They got lucky and after what they've been through, they want to do whatever they can to help other abuse victims. They're the kind of people who keep their word and they actively work to make the world a better place. No performative bullshit here.

Tiffani and Rowan have been here for a couple days now, enjoying the camp and all its lovely scenery. We've been collecting knit gyroids around the camp and checking in with OK Motors. Rowan had some car trouble so it was lucky that it managed to survive the long trip from Peace Coast to here. Since his car's pretty old, the repairs will take a while, which he doesn't mind. Beppe's also throwing in a free paint job so the car will be like new once it's finished.

Yesterday we went to the mountain trail, where not only we found gyroids, but also turtledove butterflies. They only show up around this time and after three years, I finally got to see them! I hardly venture around these parts because it's kinda out of the way but now I'm slowly expanding my horizons.

Turtledove butterflies are such majestic creatures. From the way they flutter about, their soft blue and white patterned wings contrasting nicely with the mountain view - like straight out of a lovely painting!

There's so much around the camp that I have yet to explore, I hope one day I'll know these places like the back of my hand.

Along the way and back we collected gyroids. Crafting gyroid furniture is always fun, seeing what kind of stuff we can make from them. I love the cozy knitwear aesthetic so much, it's easily one of my favorite themes! Tiffani, Rowan, and Daisy Jane did an amazing job with the designs. Given how much fun they had with the planning, there's likely going to be a second collaboration in the future, which I'm definitely looking forward to.

In between collecting gyroids and camp activities, we also got into knitting. That's why I've been in a knitting mood again. Rowan just learned how to knit last year and it's his new favorite hobby. He made a pair of leg warmers that look super snazzy, Tiffani's working on a cute beanie, Daisy Jane got started on a pretty lace scarf, and I just finished with a beaded headband.

Now I'm looking for sweater patterns and I already have some saved. Since I'm rusty with clothes, I'm sticking to something simple. The seed stitch ones are catching my eye as it's a simple pattern that looks nice, especially in pastel since that's what I've been into lately. Hopefully by tomorrow I have settled on a pattern so I can get started while I'm in the mood.

Today was a chill day where we stayed at the main camp. In between crafting, collecting, and camping, we baked donuts. I was kinda intimidated by donuts because it involves using the deep fryer but the whole process itself isn't too complicated. Making the dough was easy, using the deep fryer took some getting used to.

We made a bunch of different kinds - cardamom cream, apple cider, vanilla spice, and pumpkin pecan. The cardamom and vanilla ones are from Emilia Eats, the apple cider from Rustic Kitchen, and pumpkin pecan from Calico Bakery. They're all great, though if I had to choose, my favorite would be the cardamom cream. Pumpkin pecan comes a close second.

Since the donuts were a hit, we're thinking of baking cookies next. Tiffani wants to try out a black sesame recipe, Daisy Jane bookmarked a maple hazelnut recipe, Rowan has his eye on chocolate chip cheesecake cookies, and I always wanted to try earl grey shortbread.

Right now, we're enjoying donuts while knitting and crafting gyroids. Rowan's really becoming a pro at knitting as he wants to take on cables next. I kinda have a love-hate relationship with cables - they look good but take a bit of effort. I'll admit I haven't quite mastered them yet as I can't do a simple cable without having to refer to a pattern as a reference.

Warm, cozy knitwear and fresh baked goods - it doesn't get any better than that!

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #Diary of a Junebug #headcanon ramble

[argylemnwrites]

Life Changes

Pairing: Seth Levine x MC (Jessica Parker)

Book: Red Carpet Diaries (about 5 years after Book 3)

Word Count: ~2000

Rating: PG

Summary: A surprise statement from Jessica might mean doubling a blessing for their family.

Author’s Note: Written for the “Things You Said” prompt 19. The things you said when we were the happiest we ever were as requested by @drakewalker04​ and Day 9 of the Choices March Challenge (Euphoria). Trigger warning for discussions of infertility and adoption.

“Come on, Ben. What do you say we stack some blocks? I hear they’re all the hottest thing with the daycare crowd.”

Ben let out a long string of random consonants as Seth laid down on his stomach across from him, watching him bang two blocks together.

“Sorry, sorry! My mistake. No plebeian daycare for the child of the Hollywood elite, only a personal nanny,” he said, picking up one of the yellow blocks laying on the floor and placing it on top of the red one that was sitting in front of Ben. Ben watched Seth’s movements and tried to imitate them, but got frustrated pretty quickly when he knocked the yellow block off in an attempt to add a blue one.

Seth wanted to scoop his son in his arms and just talk to him, as he was finding that usually soothed him pretty quickly, but he kept demonstrating the stacking motion. He knew Jessica would have his head if he quit working on fine motor tasks. He thought Ben was doing fine, all things considered. After all, he’d only been in LA for about three weeks at this point, and he was already more vocal, even if he didn’t have any words yet, and he was responding to his new name like a total champ.

But Jessica had taken him to the international adoption clinic at UCLA earlier this week, and after meeting with a developmental specialist and a therapist  had come home with about 57 tasks that she and him needed to work on with Ben to help catch him up when it came to his fine motor and speech development and to try and ease the transition from a Ugandan orphanage to a Brentwood home. This was in addition, of course, to all the research she’d done since they’d first considered adopting.

But after all the pain and heartache and frustration it had taken to get to this point, all the tears and disappointment and fatigue that came with trying and trying for years, all the stress and paperwork and need to let control over anything fly out the window once they’d decided on an international adoption, letting Jessica go back to her Type A ways, particularly when she was focused on making things the best they could be for their son, seemed like a pretty reasonable thing. The truth was that Seth was so insanely happy about finally getting to be a father that he would agree to just about anything Jessica wanted, particularly since her connection with Ben hadn’t been quite as instantaneous as his was. But things were progressing, and they clearly both loved being able to bring their son home.

“So… I’m late.”

Her voice interrupted Seth’s thoughts. He looked up towards the doorway, taking in Jessica standing there in a pale pink jumpsuit. “Relax, Iowa. Chazz isn’t picking you up for…” he trailed off, sliding his phone out of his back pocket and checking the time, “20 minutes.” He looked back down at Ben, who was now just sliding the blocks across the floor, babbling excitedly as he did so.

“No, not late for something. I’m late.”

His head jerked back up at that. It had been a long time since those words had brought him or her any sort of hope. A very long time. Her cycles had been pretty irregular since she’d gone off the pill all those years ago, and anytime they’d thought it had been “too long” to just be her cycle in the past, it had been followed by disappointment. 

“How late are we talking here?”

Jessica waited a moment before she answered, “My last period was… four months ago.”

“Holy shi-” but he cut himself off at the look in Jessica’s eyes. It would be just his luck to have his son’s first word be a swear.

“It is probably nothing. With all the stress and travel and everything, I could be this late for no real reason. With everything going on, I hadn’t really notice even, but…”

“What?”

“The dress I was gonna wear to brunch didn’t zip all the way.”

“Okay. Okay,” Seth said, nodding slowly, scooping up Ben into his arms as he stood up, “I think you have to take a pregnancy test.”

She sighed at that. “I know. Do we even have any left?”

“Probably,” he said, joining her in the hallway and heading towards their ensuite. “It felt like we were buying them in bulk for a while.”

“Do they go bad?” Jessica asked as she rummaged through the little cabinet that was right inside their bathroom, digging past extra toilet paper, Kleenex, and tampons, to the ovulation and pregnancy tests that had been shoved away after too many months of negatives. Sure, they’d never gone back to actively preventing pregnancy, but once they’d committed to the adoption path for growing their family, there had been this sort of unspoken agreement to not go back to that regimented, painful, stressful, calculated pattern of trying, and the tests had just been kept out of sight.

After several seconds of hunting, Jessica pulled a little pink box scanning over it quickly, “Well, looks like it’s good for another couple months,” she said once she found the date printed on the side, but she made no move to step further into the bathroom.

“You can do this, Iowa. No matter what it says, it’s gonna be okay.”

She breathed in and out deeply a few times before she spoke, “This was never the plan, Seth. We were supposed to get pregnant within a year of trying, and when that didn’t happen, we saw Dr. Agrawal and she was supposed to help us figure out how to get pregnant, and when that didn’t happen, we were supposed to find our kids through adoption and-”

“Jessica, you’re right,” he interrupted before Jessica could spiral any further.  “Nothing has gone to plan here. Why would you expect bringing our son home and settling into being parents to be any different?”

“I just wanted something to go right, just one thing.”

Seth paused for a moment. It was rare when he had to be the optimistic one in their household, instead typically using some self-deprecation and humor to cope while Jessica was usually able to plan their way to better days in her mind. But right now, she needed him to keep spirits high.

“Hey!” he said, settling Ben onto his hip with one arm, sliding his free hand over her jaw and neck, “I think having this little guy in our lives has been pretty alright!”

“I know, I didn’t mean that… of course finally meeting our son has been wonderful.”

“Jessica…” he sighed out, tilting her head up slightly to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty. I know this is a lot to go through, and I get that having to take another one of these probably brings back all sorts of awful memories I can only begin to imagine.”

“It’s not just that, Seth. I.. I don’t even know if I’m more scared of the test being positive or negative. Because negative, well you and I have been through that in the past, and while it hurts, I know we’ll get through it again. But positive…” Jessica trailed off, taking a deep breath before she continued, “We’ve never been there before. And what if we get all excited and something bad happens? I traveled internationally, and I definitely haven’t been taking precautions like I’m pregnant.

“And what does being excited even mean about us as parents? We just brought him home and I don’t… I don’t want to act like he’s just a consolation prize, and does being happy undermine how wonderful it felt to have him and hold him as ours? And he’s just going to be getting used to us and his life with us, and then what? We throw an infant into the mix?”

Seth shook his head, “Remember how when we first met with the adoption agency, and they told us we had to be prepared to just take this one step at a time? Well, I think the same thing applies here.”

Jessica nodded and let out a big sigh, “You know I’m not always the best at that.”

“Trust me, Jessica. If I could pee on that stick for you and it would be at all helpful, I’d do it. And while biology wasn’t my favorite subject in high school, I’m at least 70% sure that won’t work.”

She gave him a little smile before taking a step back and shutting the door in his face. After a couple of minutes, he heard a flush and the faucet running, so he knocked and entered.

“Alright, just a couple of minutes until the moment of truth,” she said, drying her hands on the teal towel hanging next to the sink. 

“How did we use to distract each other while we waited for these things to cook?” Seth asked, bouncing Ben on his hip and handing him the towel he was reaching for.

Jessica actually let out a little chuckle, “I think by the end, we just resigned ourselves to them being negative.” She reached over and grabbed Ben snuggling him close. “Be honest, Seth. What do you want it to be?”

Seth shrugged, “We always said we wanted two or three kids.”

“So you want it to be positive?”

“I mean, yeah? That’s nothing new. I’ve always hoped that we’d get a positive one day. Do you not want a positive?”

Jessica ran her hand over Ben’s curls before she answered. “I don’t know if I’m just so convinced that it will be negative that I’m trying to not get my hopes up, or the thought of having two children under the age of… two,” she said, clearly doing some quick math, “just has me terrified. I mean, I barely am figuring out how to be a mother to him.”

“Pssh, Iowa. You’ve survived a Markus von Groot set. You really think two babies as cute as this guy are going to be worse to deal with than a temperamental Dutchman?”

Jessica genuinely laughed at that, her head thrown back and her blonde curls bounding across her shoulder as Ben continued to pass the towel from one hand to another. Seth figured it was a testament to how worked up she was, waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, that she hadn’t commented on how passing objects from one hand to another was something they were supposed to work on with him.

After a few more tense, painful moments the alarm chirped on Jessica’s phone. They both turned to look at the white plastic stick on the side of the sink, Jessica flipping it over as she’d done so many times before. But this time, it wasn’t one vertical line. It was two.

“Oh my God,” said Seth after a few seconds, finally finding his voice. “Jessica...:”

He turned to face her, taking in her wide eyes, a slight glisten noticeable in the corners, a smile spreading across her lips. “Seth, we’re… We’re gonna have another baby.”

Seth pulled her into a tight hug, Ben sandwiched in between them. Well, Ben and their child currently growing inside Jessica. He felt so full of joy, of hope, and of contentment. It was like the feeling he’d gotten when they’d first seen a picture of Ben, this feeling of euphoric potential. But now not only was there a child coming to him and Jessica, but he had his son right there with him this time. It was everything.

“I know we shouldn’t get carried away,” Jessica mumbled into his chest, “But Seth, I’m just…”

“I know, Jessica. Me too. Me too.”

Permatag: @octobereighth @drakewalker04​ @kimmiedoo5​ @speedyoperarascalparty​ @mfackenthal​ @lilyofchoices​ @thequeenofcronuts​ @jamesashtonisbae​ 

Seth x MC only: @choicesarehard​ @chaotichuman0090​

Events: @choicesmarchchallenge​ @lovealexhunt​

#seth levine #seth x mc #rcd fanfiction #red carper diaries #choicesmarchchallenge #rcd #choices rcd #choices fanfiction #playchoices #choices stories you play #choices #tw: infertility #tw: adoption

[frenchly-anxious]

Expert readers, bilingualism and inhibition: somes thoughts on my own writing with the help of my studies

I’ve started writing a fanfic in English (wooo, cheers to me!) and as someone who is studying language, neurology, bilingualism and some other things, I’m fascinated by what I’m doing.

I’m currently writing random words in place of the ones I’m actually thinking about.

Why, though? I think first because I type fast and when you do, your brain sometimes goes toward reflex: typing the word which is almost written the same, but that you use more often than the one you actually want.

But also, and that’s my own interpretation (you’ve been warned), because of some neat things I learned recently in class.

Did you know bilingual (or multilingual) people have better executive functions?

That’s because when you know more than one language, you have to get better at inhibiting one language when you’re speaking the other.

The studies where this is proven showed that knowing more than one language is not a bad thing. For a very long time, we thought it was slowing children down when learning language in general. It absolutely isn’t. They’re not late per se.

Of course, if you count the number of words they know at a given age, there’s a high chance they’ll know less than a monolingual child. But because you’re only taking one language in consideration. If you ask those children to answer in any language, you’ll see the numbers of words they know is more or less the same; except, it’s shared between the different languages they knows. It’s not rare to see children considered “late” by traditional tests who are actually developping quite well. Let’s say they’ve been able to name 5 of the 10 objects shown to them. An average child should have been able to say at least 8. But if we ask our bilingual kid, there’s a chance he can say his 5 objects in both language, or 5 in one language and 3 in the other, maybe a mix of both...

And those executive functions? Even if they’re better, it’s actually easier to not inhibit any language. It requires less effort.

Which brings me back to my situation. I’m not bilingual to the definition widely recognized. I’ve started learning English later on in my life. It depends on who you consider being right, but some says being bilingual is not just people growing up since birth with 2 languages. Titone (1972) said being bilingual means being able to speak another language while following its rules of structures and concepts, and not paraphrasing the native language.

Anyway, I’m at a point in my progression in English where I confuse words, expressions and pretty much anything depending on the day, between both language. (No, ‘convénient’ doesn’t exist in French, you’re thinking of the English word ‘convenient’.) To the point that, now, when I’m taking notes in class, they switch back and worth between French and English with no real logic. Because it’s easier to go along my train of thought than trying to stop it and go back to the other language. I’m mostly writing in French (because I’m waaaay better in term of grammar and vocabulary in that language); but sometimes, there are words that are faster to come to my mind in English. And, you know, so be it.

But what does this have anything to do with me writing fanfic and using random wrong words ?

Well, first because I think my executive functions are a bit at lost because it’s hard to inhibit when I’m typing that fast, plus completely focused on a story and what I’m trying to express, rather than being terrified of using the wrong word or a bad spelling, like I usually am when posting on Tumblr or writing to someone.

But also, hang on, we’re now going deep into linguistic and neurological studies!

Coltheart (1977) studied how expert readers... read. Yeah, I know, but bear with me. By ‘expert’, he means ‘good enough/not currently learning’, by opposition of ‘learning readers’.

He has an interesting theory of “orthographic neighbours”, words that have one letter of difference. Hit => Him Hip or Hat Hot or even Bit Lit Sit, ... As you can see, ‘hit’ has a lot of possibilities. Certainly less than ‘win’, or even ‘neighbour’.

I even just saw that the concept of orthographic neighbours has been widen in 2009, with things like ‘trial’ / ‘trail’, or ‘end’ / ‘send’ / ‘spend’.

Also in case of bilingualism, orthographic neighbours can come from both language: ‘rire’ in French (to laugh) with ‘fire’ / ‘hire’ / ...

So if we consider words like ‘hit’, ‘win’ and ‘neighbour’, we are actually quicker at recognizing words like ‘win’ and ‘neighbour’. Why? Because our brain is a funny thing. When reading a word, he also activates the representation of those “orthographic neighbours”. (it applies only to expert readers, because learning reader will tend to decipher each letters slowly, where an expert will see the word on a global way because he has experience. And because an expert relies more on his lexical route than his phonological one. But that’s another topic I could gladly talk about if you want to)

And by activating those other words, we create what Coltheart call a “lexical competition”; it means we then need to inhibit those “orthographic neighbours”, those useless words we have activated, so there can only be one left. So let’s say that ‘neighbour’ doesn’t have any, and ‘hit’ has at least 7 of them; it’s easy to see which one will be the longer to deal with. Even if we are counting in milliseconds.

Plus, ‘hit’ might be more frequent in English than, let’s say ‘lit’. Then it’s quicker to read ‘hit’ than ‘lit’, because your brain knows it’s more frequent to read ‘hit’, so when he’s in front of ‘lit’, he’s like “Fuck, that’s not what I was expecting, according to my statistics”. Those “statistics” come from all the reading you’ve done since you have learned how to and how frequent each word was.

Yes, your brain is an expert on statistics without trying. What an asshole.

All of this makes me think that my own sense of what’s frequent in English is largely fucked up by the fact I’m not a native, so some words seems to appear quicker than other while I’m writing this fanfic, depending on my sorta selected view on English. (I mean, I’m way more confronted to very specific topics, like for example series, gaming, gay sex and internet slang, because yeah, I spend time on the internet and that’s what is prominent. Which lead me to moments like this one where fuck and dick are quicker to my mind than duck. Thanks internet)

I wrote at some point “They can’t up” when I was thinking of “They get up”. And when I’m looking at what I had written in this fanfic, I think I have used more often the word “can’t” than “get”. And I know, they’re definitely not orthographic neighbours. Which is why I talked first about the motor reflexes you brain uses when typing fast. But I feel like there’s something about frequence here. And something about phonology I can’t quite pinpoint.

And also because I wanted to talk about those interesting studies while I have a lot of time on my hands.

Anyway, if you want to remember something from that long rambling: -bilingualism is not a bad thing at all; -depending on who you listen to for a definition, you might already be bilingual; -your brain is amazing at frequencies through statistics.

#gosh what a rambling #I love this part of my studies #did you realize it by the lenght of this? #learning a language #bilingualism #coltheart #reading #linguistic #titone #phonological route #lexical route #executive functions

[serpentupemotions-blog]

I’m With You |Sweet Pea x Cora Chase (OC)| 

Part One 

“Tell me you don’t, it feels like you do. Opening up can open some wounds.”

Cora Chase doesn’t really know what to expect when she moves back to Riverdale, only that it’s been thirteen years since she’s been gone and she wants to rebuild her relationship with her father. She definitely doesn’t expect to be thrown into a friendship with Sweet Pea, the boy looking for a job at her father’s auto shop.  

Warnings: In this part, only swearing. I will update the warnings with each part. 

Word Count: 4,500+

A/N: Thank you so much to @steve-harringtonnn for helping me with editing and planning and also for just listening to me talk about this fic almost constantly for the past couple weeks!

Cora kicks her legs up, placing her feet on one of the only empty spaces on the cluttered desk, crossing legs legs at the ankles. Leaning back, the old office chair creaks loudly, the leather covered arms cracked and peeling from years of wear. Straining, Cora stretches to reach for a pad of sticky notes, grasping them along with an old ballpoint pen.

‘Buy a new desk chair’ Cora scribbles on the paper, ripping it off and slapping it against the wooden desk before tossing the sticky notes and pen back somewhere amidst the mess of papers.

Cora looks around, taking in the state of the front office of Riverdale Auto Shop. It didn’t seem like it had ever been dusted, cobwebs draping from the exposed ductwork on the ceiling. Walls were covered in old license plates, photos of muscle cars, vintage metal signs for Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson, Esso and one overly sexualized woman advertising motor oil. Cora furrows her brows at the vintage ad, making a mental note to take it down once she found a hammer to rip the nails out. Her eyes land on a bowl of lollipops sitting on the edge of the desk, fishing one out and unwrapping it. Candy for any children that got dragged along with their parents to the auto shop, one could assume. The candy was long past the best before date based on the stale flavour and oddly tacky texture.

The jingle of the bell above the door draws Cora’s attention and she looks away from the Chevrolet clock that she had been staring at, attempting to determine if it was even still moving or not. Cora watches a tall guy step through the glass door, clutching a paper in his hands, stopping a couple feet into the office.

Cora takes the lollipop from her mouth, smiling as she watches him stand nervously halfway across the room her from her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he replies, remaining planted where he was standing.

“Hi,” Cora says again, twisting the lollipop stick between her fingers as she waits for him to say something.

“I was coming in to ask about the job opening,” he says, evoking a slow nod from Cora.  

“Right,” she comments, swinging her legs off the desk and sitting up straighter. This was a place of business, after all.

He hesitates before taking a couple steps closer, fiddling with the paper he was holding in his hands. “Do I talk to you about that? I have my resume here.”

Cora extends her hand across the desk with a smile, taking the paper as he hands it to her. Turning it around to face her Cora leans back in the office chair, scanning over the document in her hands. “Nate,” she comments, glancing up when he shifts suddenly at the sound of his own name.

“Sweet Pea,” he says, his voice sounding uncertain.

Cora opens her mouth slightly to say something before shutting it again, narrowing her eyes at him, head tilted to the side ever so slightly. “What did you just say?”

“Oh,” he says quickly, “no, I wasn’t, like, calling you that or anything. That’s what people call me…Sweet Pea.”

Cora laughs softly and nods at his correction of her assumption. “That somehow went in an even weirder direction than I thought it was going to go,” she states, bemused, twisting the chair side to side as she stares up at him. Sweet Pea. “Why?”

“Just a nickname that stuck,” he mutters. “So, should I just leave that with you?” he asks nervously a few minutes later, gesturing towards the resume that she was still holding.

Cora sets the resume down on top of one of the many stacks of papers on the desk. “Sure,” Cora says while spinning around in the desk chair. Placing her hands on the desk top she stops herself from spinning to face him, “I don’t know if you can tell, but I don’t actually work here.”

“I, uh, okay. I figured. Should I come back later…or should I call the police, did you break in?”

Cora laughs and shakes her head. “Please don’t call the police, that would really inconvenience my plans to steal the Camaro they just finished working on.” Pushing the chair back she stands up and steps out from behind the desk. “Stay there, I’ll go get the guy you want to be talking to about this,” Cora says before pushing open the door that connected the office to the shop.

“Hey, dad,” Cora says, walking up to where her dad was standing, leaning over the open hood of an old truck with one of his employees. “There’s someone here asking about a job opening.”

He nods, grabbing a shop towel from on top of the nearby tool carts. His blue coveralls were covered in grease stains, the patch with ‘Joe’ stitched into it was barely hanging on anymore. Cora was pretty certain her dad, the owner of Riverdale Auto Shop, could, and should, get new coveralls. But Joe was low maintenance to the extreme and if the coveralls still fit, he was still wearing them. “And he stuck around even with you in the front office? Brave guy,” he chuckles and turns to walk through the shop towards the office.

“That’s sexist,” Cora says, trailing after him. “Why would you just assume that it’s a guy applying for the job? I said nothing to indicate that. Women can work in auto shops too, in fact, maybe you should focus on hiring women.” She walks through the door separating the office and shop after her dad. “I’m sure there’s lots of women in this town interested in cars, but it’s assumptions like the one you just made that make women feel like it’s weird for them to want to work in the automotive industry.”

When Cora finally stops talking both Sweet Pea and her dad were staring blankly, waiting for her to stop rambling before starting their own conversation.

“Sweet Pea, I didn’t know you were looking for a job,” Joe says, extending his hand and gruffly shaking Sweet Pea’s. “You must have just graduated, right? My daughter’s the same age as you, she just graduated too.”

“Yeah, I had my last day of classes two days ago,” Sweet Pea says, nodding. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“That’s me, I’m his daughter,” Cora chimes in, walking back around behind the desk and flopping back into the office chair. “How do you two know each other?”

“Oh, I’ve known Sweet Pea since he first got his motorcycle. When was that? Did you even have an actual license then?” Joe stops to chuckle at the recollection before continuing with his story, “That bike needed more work than it was actually worth, but he was in love with that thing so he would come in after school and we would work on it together.”

“I couldn’t afford to pay anything so your dad made me feel like I was doing the work so I wouldn’t have to pay for it. I’m sure I was more trouble than I was help.” Sweet Pea chuckles, looking down at the ground with a smile on his face.

Joe claps his hand on Sweet Pea’s shoulder. “Not at all. You were such a quick learner; a very hard worker. It’s been awhile since you’ve been around though.”

Cora forces herself to smile, to hide the sudden sense of sadness that washes over her. After her parents split she left Riverdale with her mom. She could still remember that day so vividly. Her mom had picked her up early from preschool with the car packed full of luggage, to go see grandma and grandpa her mom had said. Since that day Cora had seen barely seen her dad. Christmas visits, the occasional camping trip during the summers, spring breaks she would come and spend with her dad in Riverdale. Once she graduated Cora decided to move back to Riverdale, even though she barely considered it moving back since she left when she was only five. Cora had wanted to develop her relationship with her dad, but now she was overcome with the feeling that she may never be able to make up for all those years she lost out on.

“When can you start? You’ll be perfect for the job,” Cora hears her dad ask and she slowly stands back up, walking around the desk and towards the front office door, hoping to sneak away while they were still talking. “Cora, where are you going?”

Cora gestures towards the door, her keys and wallet clutched in her hands, still inching closer to it. “To explore Riverdale, I guess. I’ve been here for almost twenty-four hours so I should really go take in the sights. See what’s changed, what I missed out on all these years.”

Joe nods, smiling suddenly and waving his hand out in a gesture that signalled to wait for whatever more he had to say. “Sweet Pea could show you around, he-,”

“No,” Cora interrupts, shaking her head with wide eyes, trying to telepathically communicate for him to shut up. “No, I’m sure he doesn’t want to spend his afternoon showing me around this place. It’s not a big place, I can manage on my own.”

“I don’t mind,” Sweet Pea says, shrugging casually.

“You’re just saying that because you want the job. I will not be a pawn in your masterplan to secure yourself a job at this place,” Cora states dramatically. “But seriously, I can show myself around.”

“Cora, he’s offering to show you around, don’t be rude,” Joe warns. Maybe it was possible to make up for all those years of being gone after all, considering he was acting like Cora was still a kid.

Cora chuckles at the absurdity, shaking her head. “He’s not offering, you offered and he’s simply going along with it,” Cora says, receiving silent stares in response. “Fine,” she huffs, turning to look at Sweet Pea, “let’s go.”

“Don’t stay out too late,” Joe calls as Cora walks through the door, laughter evident in his voice. He had been enjoying treating Cora like she was still fifteen since the moment she got to Riverdale. When she had pointed it out she got the typical, “you’ll always be a kid to me” speech that parents seemed to be so fond of.

“So, where am I dropping you off?” Cora asks once she was in her car with Sweet Pea, turning the key in the ignition and pulling on her seatbelt.

“What?”

Shifting the car into reverse she backs out of the parking lot and onto the quiet Riverdale street. It seemed like most streets were like that in this town; quiet. The pavement was in desperate need of repairs, crumbling potholes scattered around the road. “Where am I dropping you off?” Cora repeats, glancing over at Sweet Pea. “Like, your house or a friend’s house, strip club, drug den, I don’t know what you’re into.”

“You don’t want me to show you around?”

Pulling onto the side of the road Cora shifts her car into park, shifting in her seat to face Sweet Pea. “I won’t tell my dad that you didn’t actually show me around, it can be our secret.”

Sweet Pea chuckles, shaking his head. “Did you have better plans that I’m interrupting? Because when I showed up at the shop it didn’t seem like you were doing anything exciting.”

“I’m sure you have better plans…and I don’t appreciate those judgments. Staring at that clock was beyond riveting.”

“Well if that’s your idea of riveting I’m certain I can show you a great time,” Sweet Pea says, fingers absentmindedly drumming against the door panel.

Cora can’t stop the giggle that bubbles past her lips. “Are you flirting with me, Nate?”

Sweet Pea clears his throat suddenly, shifting in his seat as his fingers stop moving on the door panel.

“Why does that bother you so much?” Cora asks curiously, her eyes searching his face for an unspoken answer.

Sweet Pea shrugs, turning his head to the side to look across the small distance of her car, eyes locking on Cora’s. “Nobody ever calls me that, it’s just weird.”

Nodding slowly at the explanation that seems to be just an attempt to brush off a real answer, Cora straightens back out in her seat. “Okay, Sweet Pea, where are we going then? If you’re going to show me such a good time.”

“Well we should definitely start at the strip club and then we can make a stop at the drug den,” Sweet Pea chuckles as he watches Cora unbuckle her seatbelt, the material sliding across her body.

“I knew it,” she laughs, wrapping her fingers around the door handle and pushing the door open. Stepping out onto the gravel of the side of the road the warm June sun beats down on Cora’s skin. Leaving the door open Cora walks around to the other side of the car, Sweet Pea quickly clueing in and hopping out as well.

“Have you had lunch?” Sweet Pea asks after he was situated back in the car, Cora in the passenger’s seat and Sweet Pea behind the wheel now.

“No,” Cora says, reaching over and pressing the button on the door panel to open the window. Cora reaches her arm out, forearm resting on the ledge of the window as the warm air whips against her skin.

“Then our first stop has to be Pop’s.”

Leaning her head back against the leather headrest Cora turns her head to look over at Sweet Pea. “Aren’t you hot?” she asks suddenly. Dressed for the prospect of a job interview, not for trekking through town on a hot summer day, Sweet Pea was wearing a long-sleeve black button-up, sleeves pushed to his elbows to try and escape some of the heat.

The corner of his mouth lifts slightly, glancing across the car momentarily before returning his eyes to the road. “I don’t know, am I?”

Cora laughs softly and shakes her head. “Shut up,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “Seriously though, you’re going to end up with heat stroke or something.”

“Are you trying to get me to take my clothes off?” Sweet Pea asks, looking at Cora as he slows down before coming to stop at a four-way along the main road in Riverdale.

“Well excuse me for being concerned…put on some more layers, see if I care,” Cora laughs, the car rolling forward as Sweet Pea takes his foot off the brake, driving through the four-way stop. A couple minutes later Sweet Pea pulls into the parking lot in front of the diner. Whenever Cora came back to visit her dad they frequently ate at Pop’s, her dad’s lack of cooking skills made up for with meals at Pop’s. “Oh my God, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been to Pop’s,” Cora comments as she pushes the car door closed.

“You’ve been here before? So, I’m already doing a pretty terrible job showing you around,” Sweet Pea comments, holding the door open for Cora to walk inside ahead of him.

“You’re doing a great job,” Cora assures him, walking through the open door, thankful for the slightly cooler air in the diner. The diner was busier than she remembered it ever being before, most of the people seemed to be teenagers, escaping the heat of the summer day with their friends during summer break she would presume. Cora slides into to the vinyl covered booth near a window in the back corner, a waitress quickly coming by to take drink orders from Cora and Sweet Pea before hurrying on her way to the next table.

A silence falls over the booth between Cora and Sweet Pea. Cora shifts in her seat, picking up the chocolate milkshake and taking a quick sip, the glass clinking noticeably in the silence as she sets it back onto the table. “Let’s play a game.”

“A game?” Sweet Pea chuckles, raising his eyebrows as he waits for her to continue.

“Yeah,” Cora states, a smile on her face. “First, imagine the absolute perfect girlfriend…or boyfriend,” Cora hesitates, trying to read Sweet Pea’s reaction, receiving only a straight face. “Okay, so they’re perfect, except…they hate your friends. Do you make it and stay with them, or do you break it and dump them?”

Sweet Pea is quiet for a minute, staring at Cora expectantly. “That’s it? That’s the game?”

“Oh my God,” Cora groans, laughing as she leans back against the booth. “Yes, and you’re playing. So, what’s your answer?”

“Break up with her, I don’t want to deal with the shit that her hating my friends would bring.” Sweet Pea shrugs, taking the hint from Cora’s nodding that he was expected to come up with something for her. “He’s perfect except your family doesn’t like him.”

“Make it,” Cora says, voice a little quieter as her demeanour shifts momentarily, quickly regaining her bubbly self and continuing with the game without further explanation.  

Playing with the straw in her empty milkshake glass Cora leans against the back of the booth, looking across the table at Sweet Pea. “She’s perfect except she runs everywhere she goes, never walks.”

Sweet Pea chuckles, hesitating momentarily. “Make it.”

“Seriously?” Cora giggles, eyebrows raised. “That’d be exhausting!”

“We’d just have to stay home a lot,” Sweet Pea laughs, shrugging. “He’s perfect except the only movie he’ll watch is The Hangover.”

Cora ponders the suggestion for a moment. “Make it. We’ll just watch TV shows instead of movies…She’s perfect except she can only speak in rhymes.”

“Break it,” Sweet Pea says quickly, barely a moment of consideration, making Cora laugh in response. “He’s perfect except he’s terrible in bed.”

Clearing her throat nervously, Cora sits up straighter, fingers letting go of the straw she was playing with as she draws her hands closer to her body. They had been playing ‘make it or break it’ for the past half hour, Sweet Pea hadn’t been thrilled about it in the beginning but him playing for this long indicated he must have been having some fun with it. It had remained fairly innocuous up till this point, he never does the dishes, she never laughs at your jokes, he never lets you pick the music. “Does it make me seem like an asshole if I say break it?”

Sweet Pea smirks and shakes his head. “No, I think you saying you would break up with someone who always wears the same outfit makes you more of an asshole.”

“I don’t want to date a cartoon character,” Cora exclaims defensively, leaning against the back of the booth. “It’s too weird, buy a different outfit!”

“Can I get you two anything else? Refills?” The young waitress standing by the table draws Cora’s attention.

“No thanks, I’m okay,” Cora tells her, looking back to Sweet Pea for his answer.

Sweet Pea shakes his head, glancing at his phone. “No, could we actually get the bill, please.”

“Separate or together?”

“Separate,” Cora answers quickly, the waitress nodding before walking away from the table.

“I didn’t realize how long we’ve been here. I’m not a very good tour guide,” Sweet Pea chuckles, “but I have to get going, I’m meeting some friends out by Sweetwater River.”

The waitress returns with two bills, setting them down with a quick mention of paying at the till near the door before disappearing quickly again.

“Don’t worry about it, I didn’t actually need a tour, I think my dad is just trying to make friends for me,” Cora says with a smile. “Sounds like fun,” she comments on his plans, beginning to slide out of the booth.

“Do you want to come?”

Cora hesitates, looking over at him curiously. She had enjoyed the afternoon and hopefully Sweet Pea had too, but she wasn’t sure if it was just a kind gesture rather than a genuine offer. “No,” Cora shakes her head, “I’m not going to intrude on your plans with your friends.”

Sweet Pea stands up from the booth, picking up the bill from the table as he does so. The two of them walking down the row of booths in the direction of the door. “Is it intruding if I invited you?”

“Your friends didn’t invite me,” Cora points out, stopping and waiting by the counter as she looks up at Sweet Pea. “Go have fun tonight, sounds like you’re going to be starting a real adult life working at the shop soon, have one last teenage celebration of freedom.”

Turning to the waitress as she walks over, Cora pulls out her debit card from her wallet, paying for the bill and waiting for Sweet Pea to do the same. Together they head back out into the parking lot, the afternoon sun slowly sinking into the evening, the air still brutally warm against her skin.

“What are your plans? Do you have any real adult life plans?” Sweet Pea asks, walking beside Cora in the direction of her car.

“Plans?” she asks, as if the word was entirely foreign to her, a smile on her face. “Don’t have any right now. I’m going to see how long my dad can handle having me around,” she jokes.

“Try and stay on his good side,” Sweet Pea comments, getting back into the car with Cora. “It’s nice to have some new people in Riverdale.”

Cora smiles nervously, nodding quickly. “Yeah,” she mutters, swallowing hard as she starts the car. Her mind races through her Rolodex of easy to talk about topics. “What’s your favourite kind of car?” she asks, trying to figure out something to ask that would interest him enough to not question the way less-than-subtle shift.

Sweet Pea turns his attention to Cora, eyebrows furrowed slightly, clearly aware of the change in subject. “I’m actually more of a motorcycle guy,” he tells her.

Cora glances over at him as she drives down the main street of Riverdale, back towards the auto shop, grateful that he had accepted the change in topic. Turning her attention back to the road she listens to him talk about motorcycles, his motorcycle, the kind of motorcycle he wanted, his best friend’s motorcycle, not following anything he was saying, but enjoying listening to his enthusiasm regardless.

Shuffling into the kitchen Cora rubs her eyes tiredly, desperate for a cup of coffee. The sound of talking brings her to a halt, blinking a couple times to be sure she was seeing things correctly. Her dad was sitting at the small kitchen table, a plate with eggs and toast in front of him and Sweet Pea sitting at the table across from him, breakfast in front of him as well. “What’s going on?” Cora asks groggily, walking across the old linoleum floor to the counter where the coffee maker sat with a half-full pot of coffee.

“Good morning,” her dad chuckles, “Did you not sleep well? You look tired.”

“You’re not supposed to tell people they look tired, it’s like telling me I look like shit. I slept fine, by the way, I just need coffee.” Reaching into the cupboard she pulls out a faded yellow mug, filling it before turning around to face the kitchen table and leaning against the counter. “That doesn’t answer my question though, it’s seven in the morning, why are you here?” Cora asks, eyes on Sweet Pea.

“It’s Sweet Pea’s first day at work, I invited him over to catch up,” Joe answers for him, “please don’t be rude to our guest.”

“Your guest,” Cora replies with a smile, walking over and dropping down into the only chair left at the tiny table. “I would never invite guests over before ten.”

“Well some of us have jobs,” Joe says, and Cora’s eyes widen, a quiet laugh escaping as she glances at Sweet Pea.

“Is that a hint?” she jokes, looking back to her dad.

Joe chuckles, pushing his chair back and walking to the coffee pot to refill his mug. “No,” he tells her. “Though I’m sure you’re going to get bored eventually.”

“So, it was a hint,” Cora says with a smile, her dad shaking his head in defeat as he sits back down at the table. “Excited for your first day?” Cora asks, her attention now turned to Sweet Pea, sitting on the other side of her.

“Yeah,” he nods, bringing another forkful of his scrambled eggs to his mouth.

“I guess you have to say that with your boss sitting right there.” Cora takes a sip of her coffee, grimacing slightly. “Wow, I didn’t think it was possible for me to not like coffee,” she mutters, slowly lowering the cup back to the table while looking at the almost completely full mug sitting in front of Sweet Pea.

“What’s wrong with it?” Joe asks defensively.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink motor oil, even if you own an auto shop.”

Sweet Pea chuckles quietly and Cora looks over at him with a smile, the sound of him laughing at her joke making her feel inexplicably happy. “Have a good first day,” she says to Sweet Pea, pushing her chair back from the table, grasping the mug of coffee and carrying it to the sink, pouring the liquid down the drain before walking out of the kitchen.

Balancing the cardboard tray with three paper cups of coffee Cora pushes the auto shop door open, the bell above the door jingling as she makes her entrance. The desk was unsurprisingly empty but only a minute passes before the door between the shop and office opens, Joe was halfway through the door before he comes to a stop. “Oh, it’s just you.”

Scoffing playfully, Cora shakes her head. “Good to see you too, dad,” she laughs, walking over and lifting one of the cups from the tray. “I brought you coffee, it doesn’t taste like tar, so I’m not sure if you’ll like it.”

“Thank you,” Joe smiles, his eyes fixed on the two remaining cups in the cardboard tray.

“The other one is for Sweet Pea,” Cora tells him, her dad nodding with a knowing look on his face.

“Coffee break is in five minutes, you can go hang out in the break room and wait for him if you want.”

Taking her dad’s suggestion, she heads to the break room, a small windowless room with an old wooden table, covered in ring-shaped stains from years of coaster-less use. Not a single chair around the table matched, some were old office chairs, some were kitchen chairs, a couple plastic outdoor chairs. Décor was not Joe’s strong suit. Sitting down in a chair near the end of the table Cora takes her own cup of coffee from the tray, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip while she stares at her phone. Absentmindedly she busies herself with scrolling through Instagram till chatter in the hallway catches her attention and she looks to the door, watching the guys who worked for her dad stream into the break room. A slight smile spreads on Cora’s face when she sees Sweet Pea walk into the room, chatting with one of the guys who worked at the shop. Despite her dad introducing her to everyone who worked at the shop, Cora could no longer remember many of them, the many, quick introductions escaping her mind.

Sweet Pea notices Cora quickly, walking over slowly and dropping down into the chair beside her. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

Cora pulls the coffee out of the cardboard tray, setting it down in front of him with a smile. “I brought you a coffee…to make up for my dad trying to poison you with the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted this morning.”

Sweet Pea’s lips curve into a smile, looking at the cup of coffee in front of him. “Thanks,” he says, his voice surprisingly quiet as he looks back at Cora with an unfamiliar seriousness in his eyes, contrasting with the smile on his lips.

“Yeah, no worries,” Cora laughs nervously, unsure of his change in demeanor. “I should get going though, leave you to your first day camaraderie building,” she says with a smile, standing up from her chair and heading for the break room door. Before walking down the hallway Cora glances back over her shoulder, her eyes locking momentarily with Sweet Pea’s eyes. Giving him one last smile, Cora turns around to hurry down the hallway before anyone had the chance to notice the warmth creeping up into her cheeks.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it! Part two should be posted next Thursday! 

#riverdale #sweet pea #sweet pea x oc #sweet pea fanfic #sweet pea fanfiction #riverdale x oc #riverdale fanfiction #riverdale fanfic #riverdale serpents #southside serpents

[scriptautistic]

OK so I might be wrong but I recall one of the admins here saying they're French (or that they got diagnosed in France ???)...if I'm not mistaken, could they say more about the diagnosis process & how autistic people are treated in France (do you have accomodations, is there a lot of ableism, etc) ? I'm writing a French autistic character and I'm lacking a lot of information because most of the info about autism in France is in French, and I haven't learned the language.

Hi! You’re remembering correctly, I am indeed French, and I can answer that question.

Autism Diagnosis in France

French healthcare is set up with a primary care system with general healthcare providers(such as general practitioners or family doctors), and then you’ve got specialists, and you’ve got to go through primary care to be able to access the specialists and be reimbursed properly. It works like this for all kind of healthcare specialists, and it’s also the case for autism.

I don’t know the age of your character when they’re getting diagnosed, so I’ll cover different situations. Basically, there are three different times in your life where you can get adressed to a specialized team for diagnosis:

As a young child: It is possible the parents noticed that there was something “wrong” with their child and brought it up with the pediatrician. It is also possible that the pediatrician noticed some developmental delays or tell-tale signs of autism during one of the developmental checkups that are (theoretically) scheduled regularly during the child’s first years.

As a school-age child or as a teenager: difficulties (of an academic or social nature) at school can trigger questions from teachers or parents. Typically, the child would then meet the school psychologist who would do a first screening/evaluation. If the school psychologist thought there was ground for a diagnosis, they’d refer the child to a child psychiatrist.

As a teenager or an adult: Self-diagnosis can lead the character to seek an official diagnosis, they’d then go to a psychiatrist (people younger than 26 can go see a psychiatrist directly, people 26 and older need to be refered by their G.P. if they want to be reimbursed) to talk about it. Another possibility is the character seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist for mental health problems, and the professionnal bringing up the possibility of an autism diagnosis. If it was a psychologist who brought it up, the character would need to go and see a psychiatrist anyway, because only doctors can make official referals to specialists.

In any case, the character would end up seeing a general healthcare provider, who would ask them (or their parents) a lot of question about autistic traits, their impact on daily life and on professional/academic life, etc. If what the doctor hears lets them think that there is ground for a diagnosis, they’d then write a letter to a specialized team, with all the information to justify their demand.

Specialized teams can be composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psycho-motor therapists… There is at least one “official” team per admisitrative region in France (so that means 8 total), in what is called a Centre Ressource Autisme or C.R.A. (which means Autism Resource Center). There can also be teams in other places such as in CAMSPs (Center for Early Medico-Social Action, for children younger than 6), CMPPs (Medico-Psycho-Pedagogical Center, for children up to 18 yo), child psychiatry or pediatry services in hospitals, special evaluation units, or coordinated independant practices.

Your character can probably count a couple of months before being refered to one of these teams. It’s going to be quicker for a young child than for an adult, because it’s considered as more of a priority. For me it took 6 months but that’s because they lost my contact info, I think one-two months is more representative.

As for what the actual autism evaluation would look like, I am going to describe mine, but it’s slightly different from place to place and from team to team. It probably would also be slightly different with a child, i went through the evaluation process as an adult.

First I had a preliminary interview with a psychiatrist, it was a general discussion of my autistic traits and of the things that made me suspect being autistic. I also showed him my health report and my school report. After that he said he’d recommand me for a full evaluation and he told me to wait for them to contact me. I had the full evaluation two months later. It consisted in:

A full cognitive assessment, they used the WAIS-IV

 A language (and more) assessment, which included a spelling test, a reading speed test, a thing where I had to come up with as many words as I could in two minutes, a theory of mind test, a test in which I had to identify and then imitate intonation, a test in which I had to identify emotions on faces, give definitions or synonyms for words, and maybe more stuff that I can’t remember.

What they called a “functional assessment” which consisted in them asking questions about my daily life, about how I manage activities of daily living, how studying and working is going for me, and so on. I think they had a booklet they took questions from. They also made me do some things like telling the story from a picture and from a picture book, telling a story with objects, playing a kind of pretend game… I was filmed during all of this. They also left the room for a few minutes while leaving me with distractions (a big basket of books and stimmy things), they said they needed to talk but I think they wanted to film how I’d react while alone.

An interview with my girlfriend about my daily life, how I manage activities of daily living and whether I put myself in danger and whether I know how to manage money and stuff. Basically assessing my level of independence I guess.

There was supposed to be an interview with my mom to ask about my early development but she couldn’t come, so they gave her a paper form with questions to answer.

 After that, there is one more appointment with the psychiatrist to give me the results.

That’s about all I can say about diagnosis. The whole process took about a year for me but it’s supposed to be shorter, it would have been if they hadn’t lost my contact information. It didn’t cost me anything. It all took place in my local hospital, in a special evaluation unit for adult autism diagnosis. If you have any more questions I’d be happy to answer them.

Attitudes towards autism in France

First I’d say autism is not as well-known in France as it can be in English-speaking countries. If you ask the general population what autism is, chances are you’ll be met with faint memories of Rain Man and not much else. There’s also a certain awareness of rocking with one’s hands over one’s ears as an autistic thing, and it sometimes is used for ableist jokes and mockery. Mostly, if your character were to try and explain they are autistic to people, they’d probably have to explain everything from the beginning because people don’t really have a working definition of autism.

There’s a lot of ableism towards autism among professionnals, even though most specialists I’ve encountered were well-meaning. Asperger’s is still a very commonly-used diagnostic term here, and chances are your character would have to talk about Asperger’s rather than autism to be understood and taken seriously by professionals. If they don’t have contact with an international community, that’s also probably how they’d identify. All French communities of autistic people I’ve found centered around this word. There are not a lot of these communities, and I’m not aware of any big organization run by and for autistic people. Your character may feel isolated and have trouble finding people like them. Some hospitals or autism centers run discussion groups and meetings for autistic teens, I think.

Regarding autism, things that are well-established in the U.S. are often seen as the Brand Great New thing in France. Basically I think you can say we are about 10 years late in that regard. For instance, I’ve met a lot of professionnals who were excited to work with me because they were very interested in how autism presents in girls, they’ve read there are some differences, and so on. This is not a new researc subject in the U.S., but it is here. Another, less pleasant example of this phenomenon is that here, ABA is seen as the Great New Thing, a new efficient treatment that’s commonly used overseas but barely even known here! We’ve got to train specialists and to develop it! That’s one aspect for which I wish we wouldn’t be making progress.

Most non-specialist mental health and medical professionnals know very little about autism. Once I tried to talk about it to a psychiatrist, and he confused it with schizophrenia and schooled me on why I wasn’t psychotic. I had to teach more than one therapist about it. There are still very backwards “treatments” of autism that are sometimes in use, such as psychoanalysis (on nonverbal 5 year olds...). But as a psychology student I can say we’re mostly getting up-to-date information about autism, so hopefully this should get better in coming years.

As to accomodations, I’ve never had to ask for any so I’m not best placed to answer this question. It is law that people with disabilities (I’m pretty sure you have to have an official diagnosis for this) have to get the accomodations they need in the workplace, in school and in higher education, but I’m not sure how easy it is to get them or how well the laws are respected. I’ve seen a few disabled fellow students who got accomodations, one of whom was autistic (he had someone else take his notes for him and was allowed to record lectures). I can tell you a bit more about how to get accomodations in university; if that’s relevant for you to know you can shoot us another ask once the askbox is open again.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, if you have follow-up questions I’d be happy to answer them.

-Mod Cat   

If this post was useful to you and you want to support me, please consider buying me a coffee!

#question #mod cat #france #diagnosis #ableism #ableism cw #accomodations

[inhumansforever]

Ms. Marvel #25 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The ‘Teenage Wasteland’ story arc begins here as Kamala’s buddies try to pick of the super heroing slack during Ms. Marvel’s mysterious absence.  From the creative team of G Willow Wilson, Nico Leon and Ian Herring Recap and review following the jump.

Ms. Marvel is missing and Jersey City has been left unprotected.  Kamala’s good friends, Zoe, Nakia, Mike and Gabe are all quite worried that all manner of mayhem might ensue were the all the bad guys outer to discover Ms. M’s absence.  Hence they have hoisted it upon themselves to take up Ms. Marvel’s mantel, dress up as her and keep the denizens of Jersey City safe and believing that their hero is there to protect them.  

And the city may very well need this protection, for the weird and evil scientist, Dr. Gregory Balthazar Knox, has just been granted parol and has been released from prison.  Knox is actually the super villain known as ‘The Inventor’ and is one of the first major adversaries Ms. Marvel tangled with in her short career as a costumed hero.   It looks like Kamala has chosen the wrong time for her sabbatical in that The Inventor is sure to be up to all manner of dastardly deeds now that he’s free.  

Elsewhere, Mike is roaming the rooftops of downtown Jersey City trying her best to fill Ms. Marvel’s shoes, and uniform, and there’s also a cheap wig (which she forgot to remove the price tag from).  

Mike spots a robber (who is very conveniently dressed as a robber) trying to pilfer some priceless pearls from an older woman.  Mike jumps onto the scene, using a rigged-together inflatable device to mimic Ms. marvel’s embiggoned fist.  At first the robber laughs at this un-intimidating display, but laughs no more when the inflated fist wallops him into next Tuesday.  Her job accomplished, Mike attempts to make a dramatic exit which results in her falling off a rooftop and into a dumpster.  

Back at Gabe’s basement hideout, Mike exclaims that she’s had it.  Playing the role of Ms. Marvel has been rather difficult and she has sprained everything that she has left to sprain.  It’s someone else’s turn to take a shift.  The others lament that this would all be easier were Kamala there to help.  None of Kamala’s pals know that she and Ms. Marvel are one and the same; the fact that Ms. M and Kamala have both gone missing at the same time seems to strike them as little more than a mere coincidence.  

In any case, Zoe agrees that she’s be next at playing the role of Ms. Marvel… she’s confident that it’ll go well; you know, since she’s been doing some cross/fit of late (plus she has a copy of ‘Pakour for Dummies’ so it’s certain to go fine).

The next day at school, their classmate, Neftali, has come looking for Kamala.  It’s Wednesday, sandwich day, and Neftali has brought with him a deluxe kosher hoggie for his pal.  This is the character’s first introduction in the pages of Ms. Marvel, but apparently the two are friends and usually share sandwiches on Wednesday.  He is perplexed by Kamala’s friend’s seeming lack of concern over Kamala’s whereabout.  

Nakia and the others have grown rather accustomed to Kamala disappearing for long spats at a time.   Between Ms. Marvel’s adventures as a solo hero coupled with her participation with both The Champions and Secret Warriors, Kamala likely misses a lot of school and the others seem to have just become used to it.  Neftali, however, doesn’t like it at all and sets upon finding out where Kamala is and delivering her her sandwich (or be mildly inconvenienced in trying).  

Fortunately, Neftali has a pretty boss scooter that he uses to shoot over the Khan household where he finds Aamir in the process of loading up a moving van, prepping for his and his new wife moving into an apartment of their own.   Aamir appears to know what’s up with his sister; she’s taking a break and Aamir is not about to spill the beans on her whereabouts.  Aamir is not about to get on his sister’s bad side; he and his wife are expecting a baby any day now and Aamir is going to need all the help (and babysitting) that Kamala may have to offer.  Still, Aamir is able to convince Neftali that Kamala is okay and that he has no need to worry about her wellbeing.  

That night, Zoe has donned the Ms. Marvel garb and wig and doing her part to patrol the city and assure the citizenship that Ms. Marvel still has their backs.  Smartly, Zoe has chosen an affluent, low-crime neighborhood to patrol.   It is here that Zoe is approached by Laal Khanjeer, The Red Dagger.  

The Dagger sees right through Zoe’s disguise.  He knows the real Ms. Marvel quite well and is rather certain she doesn’t have blue eyes and caucasian skin.  He demands to know what has been down with the real Ms. Marvel, but Zoe is able to turn the tables on him by asking why it is he’s so interested…  The Dagger has a big ol’ crush on Ms. Marvel and he bashfully goes on the defensive, explaining that things did not go so well between them on their last adventure together; he’s been quite worried about her.

Zoe and The Dagger’s conversation is cut short when a screaming old man rolls by on his slow-speed motorized rascal.  Newly arrived from Karachi, The Dagger is not sure whether or not such an occurrence is a normal thing here in the states.  Zoe has to admit it isn’t and she catches up with the old-timer to see what the problem is.   The man explains that he’s escaped his assisted living home because someone there has been locking up the residents in a science dungeon.  

Concerned that the old fellow might be suffering from some type of age related cognitive issue, Zoe and The Dagger escort him back to the Sundown Senior Sanctuary.  Whist doing so, The Dagger laments that in his home country they would never treat their elders in such a way; one’s grandparents deserve respect and should be cared for by their families.  Here here.  

Despite the old man’s claims of peril, the Sundown Senior Sanctuary seems to a nice enough place.  There’s a spirited game of checkers going down as well as an old codger who appears perfectly content chucking a bunch of stuffed animals out the window (which does look rather fun).  

Despite the apparent lack of any danger, The Dagger insists that he and Zoe have a look around just to be sure.  Begrudgingly, Zoe agrees and as they look around they encounter Bob the orderly who demands they vacate immediately.  This ‘Bob’ is quite obviously Dr. Gregory Balthazar Knox.  Yet, in his guise as a super villain, Knox wore this weird bird costume so neither recognize him (although Zoe does sense something familiar about him).  

Quite suddenly, a mechanical arm crashes through the wall, its mechanized hand grabbing Zoe and picking her up.  The Dagger tries to rescue her but they both end up falling down to the side of the building.  Fortunately they land safely in the pile of stuffed animals that old dude had been chucking out the window.  Thanks gramps!

The two get up and see before them the creature that had attacked them: some type of giant chameleon cyborg!  Uh oh!   

And it is here that the issue concludes with the promise of continuation.  

It’s an interesting and fun irony that an issue that doesn’t feature a single appearance of the real Ms. Marvel should feel so unequivocally ‘Ms. Marvel-esque’ in tone, style and substance.  The quippy but authentic dialogue, continued strong character development, and fun but still perilous adventure is all here… it’s only Kamala herself who is missing.  Yet I don’t miss her too terribly in that I love her supporting cast and am quite happy for a story arc putting them in the center spotlight.  

Zoe especially shined in this issue.  She is such an intriguing characters in that she has transformed so much from her first appearance (where she was a one-dimension and stereotypical cheerleader mean-girl) to her current status as a wholly unique, fully fleshed-out, interesting and relatable character.  Zoe is merely a component of Ms. Marvel’s supporting cast, yet she has more depth and development of personality than most characters who star in their own book (or books plural).  It reminds me of the Lee/Ditko era of Amazing Spider-Man where Petey’s pal, Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Flash Thompson and Liz Allen all played pivotal roles in the stories, making Spidey’s world feel real and multidimensional.  

Zoe and The Red Dagger make for a great pairing.  Outside of their shared concern for Kamala, the two have almost nothing in common yet they play off one another in a wonderful fashion.  G Willow Wilson’s skill at providing her characters such a unique and idiosyncratic sense of voice makes the dialogue such a treat to read.  

I also appreciated the addition of Neftali to the crew.  It’s difficult to say what the story is with this guy, where he’s been all this time and how it is that he has access to such highly coveted sandwiches, but I’m definitely interested in learning more.  The scene between him and Aamir is particularly intriguing... not because of what is said, but rather what is not said.  I like that there can be a scene between one character who is quite obviously Muslim and another who is quite obviously Jewish and the matter of culture and religion is not at all a factor.  

Also, as a Jewish guy myself, it is always nice to see a fellow Jew introduced as a character.  I can already hear the haters lamenting the overtly political correctness of Kamala’s running crew being so very diverse, but representation does matter and it just feels good to see someone like me as a part of the Ms. Marvel cast.  

Likewise, I’m glad to see The Inventor make a subsequent appearance.  As a comic, Ms. Marvel really needs to start accruing a more stable rogues gallery; and the Inventor’s return is an excellent step in that direction.  It makes for an interesting twist that he has gone from targeting shiftless teenagers to setting his sights on shuffled-away senior citizens.  It’s sinisterly clever that he always goes after those who are pushed off to the fringes, who may be the least likely to be missed.  Based on his prior appearance, The Inventor has expressed a particular animosity toward those he see as not contributing to society; perhaps he feels the same way toward the elderly.  He’s just a bad dude.  

A lot of the fellow Ms. Marvel fans I’ve spoken with are still holding out hope that Kamala/Bruno might still happen.  Although it’s a shipping I respect, I actually much prefer Kareem.  Of course I would also be fine with Kamala not having a love interest at all.  She’s just a teenager and anything outside of holding hands is likely to be more than what she is currently interested.  Still, I think the Red Dagger is super cool and I’m psyched that he’s going play a central role in this adventure.  

Artist, Diego Olortegu, had illustrated the previous two issue.  Mr. Olortegu is a very talented artist, yet I didn’t feel as though he was a particularly good fit for Ms. Marvel.  This issue is illustrated by Nico Leon who is much more apt in capturing that distinctive look and aesthetic that has come to be something of a hallmark of the title.  Similar to Adrain Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa, Leon absolutely excels at providing the kinds of facial expression, panel layouts, detailed backgrounds, sight gags and all the fun little tidbits that makes the series so special.  In particular, I liked Gabe zipping about his basement on a hover-board, Zoe’s reading ‘Pakour for Dummies,’ and the sign at the Sundown Senior Sanctuary reminding residents not to feed cake to Fluffy the dog.  

I’ve long-since run out of ways to laud Ian Herring’s color work, so I’ll just repeat once more that it is flawless and Mr. Herring’s coloring has remained just as crucial a component to the specialness of Ms. Marvel as the wrting and illustration.

Another fantastic read and highly recommended.  This is the last issue of Ms. Marvel for 2017 and I can say once more that the series has easily earned a spot on my top ten best comics of the year. A must read.  Five out of Five Lockjaws.  

#Ms. Marvel #Kamala Khan #G Willow Wilson #Nico Leon #Ian Herring #spoilers #review #Inhumans

[standbyphoenix]

RIVER PHOENIX GOING WITH THE FLOW - Part II

As for the name, "I like it now," says River. "It's really weird."

Talking about his really weird background, he says, "I've read articles where my parents are described as hippies or flower children. That's really not valid 'cause my parents were not activists or hanging out on campus. They didn't want to get involved. They were more like dropouts. Moving up to Oregon, where we had a log cabin, picking apples. That's where I was born."

His father, River says now, wanted to abandon all ties with his former life. "It's his background. He had a real rough childhood. When he was 7, his mother was in a major car accident that left her paralyzed. His father took the insurance money and ran off with a blond to Australia when he was like 12. So he was just like left in the middle of Fontana, California."

River brushes his long corn-silk hair from his face. "He was really angry. He broke windows and got into a lot of trouble and ended up in juvenile hall. He went through a lot. When he met Mom, I think it really saved him. They decided to drop out and find themselves." A pause, then a small laugh. "They're still looking."

River, on the other hand, seemed to know what he wanted. "I was very ambitious," he recalls. He started playing guitar when he was 5 and often joined his sister down in Venezuela entertaining tourists at hotels and airports to make money. "A lot of the songs were religious and positive. Like, 'You Gotta Be a Baby to Go to Heaven.' That's what we were into."

He slouches back in the chair, letting his hair fall in his eyes. "We had seen some wealthy locals who had this motor home and Dad said, 'How much would something like this cost?' And the guy was like, 'What are you talking about? You could never afford it!' And it was true. We had nothing at all ... We lived out on the beach in a hut. It was infested with rats and the ceiling had flying cockroaches but there were banana trees outside and that was my reality. I wasn't unhappy at all. I was just living.

"As a kid, I was very spiritual. I had a lot of faith in God. I totally believed. I knew the Bible very well. I memorized many many many verses. That was just a stage we had gone through. We're not at all like that anymore. We use a lot of the same terminology, you know, in like talking about stuff. You use the term God, but what is God, you know? A universal force? A universal being?"

The family set a goal, he says, "through any talents that we might develop, to better the world, to have a positive influence. Think globally and act locally, that kind of thing. It all branched from the '60s, trying to change the world, but it wasn't that extreme. Just doing our part. We didn't want to just be selfish and into material things and make money. We wanted a ranch where we could have our own garden, a nice place to grow up."

Of the Phoenixes' effect on others, he says, "People found us very interesting. Very pure."

By the fourth grade, River had dropped out of school. "I didn't have the time once I was working, or the energy," he says. "I do miss it, but a part of me knows that I could really have been influenced by it. I have a lot of chameleon qualities. I get very absorbed in my surroundings. I think it's what helps me in acting, you know, with characters and being in a new location."

His talent springs from "having to adapt. From moving from place to place. Anything was possible. We could be there and then the next day we could be movie stars! It's very spontaneous. ... We move very frequently." Right now the family is living in a rented house in Gainesville, Fla., and travels a lot by motor home.

"I've had a lot of fun," he says. "Just in a different way. I've experienced driving around in cars and going to parties. It doesn't attract me."

When he first read the script for "Little Nikita," he thought it implausible. But he says he had no choice. "You're dealing with these big executives. They say, 'This is what would be good for you.' You say, 'Okay.' I could have said no, but I would have been a total idiot to say no. At that point, I might never work again."

Lately, he says, "My standards have definitely changed. Now I'm more confident ... I can say I don't feel a passion for the script and that's that."

Tough talk. But after all, the guy is a teen-ager. And all teen-agers have problems. And River Phoenix is no exception.

"My biggest problem right now is probably socially, dealing with people I meet ... People feel uncomfortable. They feel inferior for no reason. They walk on eggshells around you."

At times, he says, "I'd like to trade. It would be nice to not have anything. To just be floating, you know?"

A lot of girls find him attractive, he suspects, "because it would be interesting to date a celebrity. I'm not a jerk. I'm a nice person, so I can understand that. Its hard."

He clears his throat. "I have a lot of girlfriends, but they're friends. If that developed into something ... as far as dating, let's go to a movie and sit in the back seat, that's not me."

Finding the subject uncomfortable, he squirms in his seat. "I find sex very distorted and relationships and love, just everything. I think television and movies are a big part of that ... I'd probably be a lot more social if I'd gone to school."

Is he still dating actress Martha Plimpton, whom he met on "The Mosquito Coast" and worked with again on the upcoming "Running on Empty"?

He squirms again. "I really have problems trying to understand what dating means or what boyfriend and girlfriend mean."

Okay, put it another way: Is he still in love?

He lowers his eyelids. "How do you know I was ever in love with Martha?" A pause. "We've definitely experienced love together. We're still close."

He says a far bigger problem is his relationship with males. "Guys are tough because I'm pretty free as far as my emotions and being honest and a lot of guys aren't like that. They have this little role they play. Guys are afraid of sensitivity and they're paranoid about the whole sexual thing and so you get a lot of that."

His is asked to name his favorite music.

"Favorite music?" he repeats. The list spills out: "Old XTC, old Squeeze, old Police, Split Enz, Tom Waits, {Elvis} Costello, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Joni Mitchell, older Suzanne Vega, one Fixx album ('Reach to the Beach'), a lot of jazz, not the synthesized Flock of Seagulls, Talking Heads."

Favorite food?

"Tofu."

Favorite drink?

"Fresh water."

Favorite color?

"Blue."

Favorite smell?

"Skin."

He laughs easily. "I thought I was really into the girls with the real Middle Eastern look, exotic and really dark." He pauses. "I see beauty in a lot of things. It's not really the physical that attracts me. My taste is a lot different."

Favorite author?

"I love {Kahlil} Gibran. 'The Prophet.' 'Brave New World' -- I love Aldous Huxley. And of course, Salinger, 'Franny and Zooey.' I love it. It's such a romance. Right now I'm reading a book I should have read in fourth grade, 'The Red Badge of Courage.' "

Favorite fellow actor would no doubt be Harrison Ford, who played River's unconventional father in "The Mosquito Coast."

"I didn't know what to expect in the beginning. He was very down to earth, a very logical man, a very smart man, really educated. Practical. He's sturdy. He seems like psychologically, he's a sturdy man. A real father figure. In control. Very centered."

He sighs again. The time is almost up. He has wanted to talk about the world and peace and the Antichrist, but when he does, he says, interviewers take advantage of him. Portray him as a flake. "Sometimes I feel an interview is so important. It's a chance to say something significant. Oh God, so much needs to be done. Where do you start? Everyone customizes their life. It's what convenient."

He looks so worried. Like a little boy on the edge of a playground. Life is so large and complicated and hard and he is so small and special and somehow separate from the others.

What does he want to be when he grows up?

River Phoenix sighs. "I wanna be whatever I evolve into. Now will take me there."

— by  Stephanie Mansfield for The Washington Post, March 1988.

#river phoenix #rio #river #phoenix #phoenix family #interview #the washington post #80s

[crucialandinert]

Intruder

happy birthday, @joycecarolnotes -- and thank you so much for the prompt. Please forgive my terrible Richard, I have no idea what makes dude tick and, i’ve never written him before, but, i tried. 

He could have turned it to the wall, he supposed. But that would have been the easy way out, and Jared was not one to pamper his weaknesses. He didn’t spend hours staring at it or anything, although maybe he should have to toughen himself, but when its gaze burned through him as he entered the server room, or caught his eye while he was getting dressed – the instant pressure on his chest, how he could suddenly hear his heartbeat in his ears – these were things quietly to be borne.

After all, the incident with the intruder had really been a blessing in disguise, hadn’t it? When you know, truly know, that your life can end at any moment, and you close your eyes, dissolve to nothing but the hush of your breath, truly surrender your soul to fate – why, in that moment you become free. You can be startled, you can be anxious, you can be filled with longing, wishfulness, at times discontent (that will be sternly and swiftly dealt with) but you can never really be afraid, deeply afraid, again. All that you had to lose, you’ve already lost. You walk among the others like a ghost; they have more colors, are brighter, warmer, grasp and cling and tear at life, while you look on and hold lightly to the earth, the sole inhabitant of a world they cannot see.

Richard was worried, and there was no one he could tell. Piperchatting with his mom was out of the question, because he could never tell her the whole story. Everyone else in the house, while not exactly more incapable of coping with human emotions than him – he was the undisputed champ there – definitely didn’t even approach the threshold of “any use at all.” Except, of course for Jared, and he was the one Richard was worried about.

Jared said things Richard didn’t know what to make of all the time. The most he ever found himself saying in reply was “What?” – and then desperately hoping there wouldn’t be an answer and he could forget about it again. He wasn’t sure exactly why Jared said these things. It didn’t seem like he wanted anything in particular from the group. He would just kind of drop something incomprehensibly awful into the room and smile, and go about his business. Great, you had to pretend a plastic bag with a drawn-on face was a teddy bear when you were a kid. What am I supposed to do with that? Don’t you realize how weird you’re making everybody feel? The best thing, the only thing, to be done was to ignore it.

But Richard had finally run headfirst into something he couldn’t ignore: Ed Chambers. Sure, Jared had referred to him as his “fictional” supervisor, but absolutely nothing else about what he’d said or how he’d acted seemed to indicate the guy knew Ed wasn’t real. That couldn’t be a good sign. Maybe Richard should have paid more attention when Jared had his outburst at Gavin’s house. That had been far out of character for someone so mild, so harmless – someone who could be charitable even to the rats they still hadn’t quite gotten around to exterminating from where he slept. And now this. Richard tried for a moment to convince himself that Jared was just kidding. That would be a good way to get himself to stop worrying about it, but he knew it was a lie. There was a blankness behind Jared’s eyes when he talked about Ed that frightened Richard. Maybe they were pushing him too far, too much stress? Did Jared have a breaking point – he’d never thought so. Or maybe this was it. Or maybe there was something worse coming, something it was up to Richard to prevent.

Richard padded down the hall and knocked a tiny, one-knuckle knock on Dinesh’s bedroom door. Thumping sounds and scrambling ensued for an awkwardly attenuated moment, then Dinesh opened the door a crack. “What do you want, Richard?”

“I – I was wanting to talk to you for a couple minutes? About this Ed Chambers thing, with Jared, you saw that, right?”

Dinesh swallowed imperceptibly. Had they been even vaguely directed toward him, he would not have been able to meet Richard’s eyes.

“Yeah, I did. What about it? He’s a weird dude, we all know that.”

“Do you – did you happen to see how it got started? You were with him in the kitchen that time.”

“No, I don’t know how it got started. Maybe that’s how he gets all those girls. Who understands why Jared does anything. Now if you'll excuse me, I’m trying to get to sleep.” Dinesh yanked the door shut with a peevish thunk.

Richard headed back to his room and scaled his loft bed, fretfully. That was dumb, to have expected Dinesh to be any help. Or to give a shit. Richard contemplated asking Erlich for a moment, but didn’t think he could stomach the pompous lecture about Jared’s true two-faced corporate nature finally coming to the fore or something. Gilfoyle was completely out of the question. No, he was truly alone. Without Jared, to ask for help dealing with Jared, so he could ask for help to deal with Jared… he would be stuck in an infinite recursive loop.

Richard stared at the ceiling. Maybe it was something simple. Maybe Jared just wasn’t sleeping again. He didn't have those awful dark circles, the ones that made his eyes seem so blue they glowed, that he'd displayed during the “let’s pivot” incident; but there were probably several stages of sleep deprivation along the road to that and maybe one of them was sometimes believing you’re a guy who could “do it” to Sonia Sotomayor.

Ed knew he shouldn't have let that pussy Jared handle the broadband bill situation. He'd meekly tried to bring it to Richard's attention in that gay ballerina way of his, but one "Fuck off, Mom," and Jared just let it go! What a faggot. Someone that helpless, someone who let others treat him that way, shouldn't be trusted with anything; God only knew what Richard saw in the dude. Fucking useless. So, that morning, Ed had had to be the one to go down to the Xfinity storefront and get it taken care of. Got them a sweet discount while he was there, too -- Jared was the kind of loser who always paid full price. Or even more, probably. They could smell him coming. Someone who it was irresistible -- hell, it was fun -- to take advantage of.

He shook his head, and gunned the engine of the Chevy Volt. Ed was hungry -- cleaning up Jared's bullshit had made him late for lunch. He wondered what Jared was having -- with one hand on the wheel, he shot him a quick text. But who the fuck was this lady in front of him in the 10-year-old Camry? Was she fucking blind? This was the third light in a row she'd been dozing on green, he'd been trying to pass her for blocks -- she was one of those drivers who go so fucking slow you can't even get around them, and he was stuck.

Ed felt his blood pressure rise. He mashed the horn, stopped just short of yelling, "Come the fuck on, lady!" But she still didn't move. Was she deaf too?The light was green! Ed was sick of this bitch in his fucking way. He punched the horn again -- vaguely he noticed room had opened up on the left to drive around her, but now this was personal. He had to get this bitch to move. I know, Ed thought, I'll wake her up, and he gave the gas a little tap, making the motor roar. He'd intended to stop just short of her bumper, give her a scare, more the noise than anything else -- but slamming on the brake with a heavy lurch, he made contact by mistake, just barely.

Jared's head jerked forward, shocking him back to himself, as he felt his bumper make contact with the car ahead. His eyes widened. He hadn't even noticed the white Camry in front of him -- must have zoned out again while he was driving, it'd been happening to him a lot lately. He should have done something -- what, he wasn't sure -- about it long before now, it was putting others in danger! Why, he was no better than someone who would text and drive, and Jared would never think of doing that. But there would be time later to excoriate himself. Jared fumbled at the door handle and launched out of the car toward the other driver, already digging for his wallet and insurance card.

A motherly Asian woman emerged from the midsize sedan, took one look at Jared, and immediately started to try and calm him down. "I'm sorry -- I'm so, so sorry! I don't know what came over me, I'm never this careless, this inattentive-" His hands fluttered around him, a storm of gawky dismay that took legions of "honey, I'm fines," "it was nothings," a somewhat stern, "no, I don't think we should tell our insurance companies, I'm sorry but I insist -- you don't want to raise our rates, do you? Ok then, you don't want to raise MY rates," and one, "Just sit for a moment -- here, why don't you take one of my son's waters -- no, really, I have a whole six-pack -- look, I'm starting to get kind of frustrated here," to finally bring them to rest.

It was a good twenty minutes spent alternating sips from a tiny plastic bottle, some light sniffles, and a face hidden in bewildered hands, before Jared felt composed enough to try and drive home.

Now it was Richard who hadn't gotten enough sleep. That was nothing odd; he'd tried to take his usual approach, flog himself awake with caffeine, get some work done and forget about it. But as the day wore on, his overclocked brain couldn't be corralled from wandering to thoughts of his head of business development's earnest blue eyes, as he told Richard that he'd fired someone who didn't exist. It was just -- crazy. Number one, if Ed was Jared's supervisor, how was that even supposed to work?

Richard shook his can of Redbull, found it empty, yanked his headphones off, and stamped out into the kitchen. It occurred to him -- he should look around the server room to see if he could find something that might be messing up Jared's sleep. There could be noises, leaks, something could have infiltrated the ecosystem as an apex predator to the rats -- who knows, because Jared would never have complained.

It was staring him in the face the moment he walked in.

Shit! Shit, shit – oh shit. The Gavin picture. Duh. Jared had balked at having it in there, but then said something about an intruder being good for him? Richard had checked out, mentally. Maybe Jared hadn’t actually been as sunnily fine as he seemed this time, and having the picture in his room was keeping him awake. And of course... the weird anger outburst had been about Gavin. Richard felt like he was suddenly seeing in the third dimension. Jared wasn’t just an eternally buoyant, strangely maternal accessory for Richard to lean on without much thought. He was… vulnerable. He needed protection. From Richard. Richard had to do protection. Protection, a thing which would have to be done by Richard. A familiar quaver arose in his innards. Either there had been cilantro in that microwave burrito or -- Richard was scared.

By the time he got back to the hostel, a slight tiredness behind the eyes was all that remained of the afternoon's unpleasantness. The only content of Jared's mind was an eagerness to get back to work; he was behind on what he'd hoped to get accomplished over the weekend. A quick peep at his watch revealed that he no longer had time for lunch -- and, that his heart rate had returned to normal, so that was good. Now to grab his laptop from the server room and get down to it.

But -- Jared found himself stopping short moments away from reaching for the doorknob. Right before opening a door is the most important time to be alert and use “the gift of fear,” as described in a self-help book about tuning into your survival signals that Jared hadn’t actually needed to read, as it turned out. And it seemed to be time to unwrap that gift. Jared had heard something. He had definitely heard something. Something larger than even the largest of the rats. Something... human. Perhaps an intruder had finally gotten in through the garage door – the possibility of which, along with the complete and utter lack of insulation, was among the slight drawbacks of living in the server room.

What to do, what to do. If there were an intruder, he certainly wouldn’t keep to the server room once he discovered there was nothing of value among Jared’s possessions. No, he would be coming through that door to menace the rest of the house, possibly armed. Erlich, Dinesh and Gilfoyle were all out having lunch with Jian-Yang’s visiting parents -- or, more saliently, at Jian-Yang’s parents’ expense. Jian-Yang himself had requested that Jared not partake in the invitation, as ghosts are taken much more seriously in his family’s region of mainland China then they are in the U.S.. A perfectly reasonable request.

Jared didn’t know if Richard had ended up going with them, or was in his room with his headphones on, deep in concentration, but he certainly wasn’t about to take chances. The only thing to do would be to come in strong and startle the intruder. Even if he did discharge his firearm in fright, he would certainly take to his heels and flee back the way he had come. Intruders were nothing if not cowards. Sure, there was a slim possibility of the intruder being a decent shot, but, one must take calculated risks in life. Avanti.

Jared took one last deep breath, grabbed the doorknob, and launched himself through the doorway with a full-throated Apache yawp – directly into chaos. Out of a squeal, a crash, the tinkling of what – thank gosh in heaven! – turned out to have been safety glass, he was horrified to see tumble – Richard, clutching a large, torn piece of Gavin's image in his hand! Overcome, Jared flew to his side, patting hands trying to reassure themselves that Richard was still in one piece, tangling with flapping wings of high-quality giclee art-photo paper, until at length, Jared was successfully fended off. He sank down on his cot, one splayed hand trying to push back a heart which seemed to be struggling to fly out of his chest back to the other man.

“Richard! What were you doing? You frightened me to death – I thought you were an intruder! I'm so sorry, I can't apologize enough -- What a repulsive show of aggression-– ”

“No – no, Jared, it’s OK. I was just… Well I thought, what are we really keeping this thing for anyway? I have a picture of the formula on my phone. It was just a fuck-you gift from that jerk… and I thought, given the way – you know, how you didn’t like Gavin very much – maybe it was making you uncomfortable?”

What it’s like, is it’s like this: There is a knife in your guts. You were stabbed a long time ago, and, to prevent more damage, you mustn’t remove the knife without the aid of a doctor, but -- you can’t get to one, none even exist. So, to survive, you must move just so, carefully, you must become adroit at flowing through things at just the right distance so as never allow the handle to knock or tap anything around you. At night, you will never really quite sleep, even if you are unconscious, as you must continue to hold the knife in and never relax your vigilance, or everything else will spill out.

It’s all right. You’re so used to it, it hardly even registers. But oh – then oh, someone does a kindness, and they don’t mean to, they’re not twisting the knife, oh far from that – but they’re tapping it. They don’t know, but they’re tapping it, shifting it ever so slightly, sending a pang through you, destabilizing things, just a little. The threshold is low: They invite you somewhere. Tap -- you’re swept with anguish; someone wants you around, not to do anything for them, but truly wants you there. They compliment you on something you wore. Tap -- your eyes will never leave the floor again; somehow they looked at you and could stand it; somehow, they didn’t find you hideous.

Or, the hardest one -- they notice that you are in pain.

Hope and despair aren’t opposites; they are one and the same. Both grab your head and twist it around to look at what you lack, what you’ve always lacked. One says, you’ll never get it, and one says, maybe one day you will, but both are portals to the same essential void, and both can crack you, shatter you like glass. And those moments, when you are given a tiny bit of it, when the knife is grasped however gently, are like that too. They are every moment when you needed, needed so desperately, and were alone; all played at once like an avant-garde symphony for infinite radios.

“Jared. Jared, hey. You look like you’re a million miles away, uh... buddy.”

Jared’s gaze returns, and focuses on the childlike figure before him. The sweet face, soft coppery hair in curls and waves, diffident shoulders. The blue eyes looking uncertainly up at him, that always make Jared want to draw Richard close, shelter him in his arms from the slings and arrows of his audaciously-sought fortune – but selfishly, had also made him want just to be close to a soul so vulnerable, yet so incongruously brave. He shifted his eyes downward. Soon, they would be drowning in tears, to be sent on their way silently down his cheeks, and he mustn’t let Richard see.

“Oh Richard, I’m just so touched – that you would give any consideration at all to my silly preferences. You have so much on your mind, so many stressors these days, I hope you won’t waste another moment –”

There's a tug-of-war in Richard’s heart. Part of him is dying to flee, counting down the nanoseconds like an atomic clock until all this weirdness can just be over, be over. But another, smaller, part is lifting his eyes to look at Jared – Jared who’s crying – Jared who’s breaking, and Richard doesn’t want him to break.

Something that’s never happened in their relationship to date then happens – Richard moves a step closer.

“No way man. You’re a – we’re a team, you know, and we’re all stressed out, this shit is insane, and, and me – me I’m supposed to be the leader, right – I should – I should be looking out for you. And the rest of the guys.”

A small pat is launched, makes it halfway through the intervening air, but is thought better of and recalled. Secretly, Jared is grateful.

“OK so uh – we should clean that up, but, later maybe? I think – maybe you could take a nap or something, you can always use more sleep, can’t you Jared, ha ha.” Jared nods numbly as Richard makes his exit.

Slowly, he folds himself small on his cot, facing into the hanging clothes. Moments in closets, hiding to varying degrees of success, come and go through his mind, as Jared’s tears proceed at a slow, but stalwart pace. It’s as if he holds his own heart in his cupped hands, as he would an injured bird, and turns it, observing its wounds. There is a feeling of opening outward, unfurling a night sky silvered with tiny stars, that spreads out where a void ought to be. It hurts, but he can feel something growing; as he continues to breathe, he discovers he can hold the pain safely. There’s a word in his head, he notices, whispering itself ever so softly. The word is... “maybe.”

#jcn #birthday prompt #good god that's long #NWAAMT #my fic

[mcmansionhell]

McMansion Hell Around the World: Where and Why Do We Build McMansions

Hello Friends!

My apologies for the late post - my faithful laptop of 5 years died on Saturday, and I have been in IT Hell (someone make that a blog pls) getting my files off of my hard drive, in the meantime learning a valuable lesson about keeping things in the cloud. Anyway, I hope you like words, because that’s what this article mostly is. 

I receive emails all the time about McMansions built in countries outside the USA. I’m here this week to briefly examine where and why McMansions are commonly constructed (and why the US has the vast majority of the world’s gross houses.) For the next five Sunday posts, I will be doing a special on the houses of each of these countries:

Canada

Australia

Isolated, yet entertaining cases to be covered in the coming weeks:

Ireland (specifically during the housing bubble, less-so now)

China 

Eastern European ex-Soviet countries

Now, as those of you who are also obsessed with @uglybelgianhouses​ may know, ugly houses transcend geography. However, not all ugly houses are McMansions. I taxonomize McMansions to be houses built after 1980, having 3,000+ square feet, constructed with low-quality materials/craftsmanship, and use a mishmash of architectural symbols to invoke connotations of wealth or taste, executed via poorly thought-out exterior and interior design.

Why, then, do certain countries build McMansions, and others do not? 

Available Land

In order to build large houses in low-density neighborhoods, you have to have space into which you can sprawl. That being said - having lots of land does not directly correlate with having more large houses, however it is one of many factors favoring the formation of low-density, often greenfield (unoccupied lands used for agriculture, landscape design, or left alone indefinitely) developments where large houses are commonly found. 

If we look at average house sizes around the world, the US, Australia, and Canada continue to have the largest homes. 

Chart Source

However Russia, the largest country in the world by square-footage, has some of the smallest house sizes. This is due to a number of factors including the amount of habitable vs inhabitable land, a predilection towards living in dense cities, and the relatively small amount of new housing stock built each year. 

Private Transportation Infrastructure (CARS!)

The countries with the largest houses are highly linked to car use and infrastructure for private transportation. Enjoy some data:

Sources: Columns 1 & 2 • Column 3 • Column 4 Columns 5 & 6: National Geographic Greendex***  • Column 7

*** Walking or biking frequency, for 2012. Represents percent of population that walk or ride their bike to their destination either "all of the time" or "often." Public transit usage, for 2012. Represents percentage who responded that they use public transit "at least once a week" or "every day or most days," for 2012. (Other options in survey included "at least once a month," "a few times per year," "once a year or less," or "never.")

As we can see from this graph, the US, Australia, and Canada are more dependent on the car than most other highly developed nations. The amount of existing road infrastructure, gasoline consumption, etc. are a result of car commuting, a byproduct of urban expansion aka sprawl. Because this infrastructure is both convenient and already in place, until we run out of space or come to our senses, we are going to continue sprawling. 

Restrictive/Inflexible Zoning Laws

Countries like the US (less so: Canada, Australia, and the UK) have more restrictive zoning laws than places like France, which allow for more flexible development. Zoning is the segregation of land into sections to be used for certain types of uses, such as residential, industrial or commercial. 

Example of a zoning map (Santa Clara County, CA) via Richard Masoner (CC-BY-SA 2.0) (Blue is industrial, green is green space, red is commercial, orange = ?)

Low-Density Residential zoning was incentivized during the 20th century, leading to the rapid suburbanization of the US and Canada. Existent zoning is often a barrier to multifamily housing units which are often less expensive than detached single family homes. 

The US, for example, has the most convoluted zoning laws in (probably) the world. Zoning laws and housing regulations can include:

Minimum lot size

Minimum home square-footage

Minimum square-footage per room

Minimum square-footage per person

For more information on different building code and zoning regulations, check out this report from Planning.org

Zoning and building codes in the US have tended to benefit larger properties rather than smaller properties, greenfield and tear-down development rather than infill development (development using existing building stock or empty space within existing infrastructure) which is partially why US homes continue to spiral upward in size despite the effects of the Great Recession.

Mortgage Speculation, Products, and Incentivization

Many people ask why the US in particular has more McMansions than other countries. Part of the reason is because the US offers many more government incentives to buy a home. 

Chart Source

The US also issued much riskier mortgage products than other parts of the developed world. In an article from immediately after the Recession, economist Nouriel Rumbini put it thus: (emphasis mine)

For the last few decades over-investment in housing – the most unproductive form of accumulation of capital – has been heavily subsidized in 100 different ways in the U.S. government: tax benefits, tax-deductibility of interest on mortgages, use of the FHA, massive role of Fannie and Freddie, role of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, and a host of other legislative and regulatory measures.

The result was that the U.S. invested too much – especially in the last eight years – in building its stock of wasteful larger and larger homes and housing capital and of larger and larger private motor vehicles (whose effect on the productivity of labor is zero) and has not invested enough in the accumulation of productive physical capital (equipment, machinery, etc.) that leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and increases long run economic growth. This financial crisis is a crisis of accumulation of too much debt – by the household sector, the government and the country – to finance the accumulation of the most useless and unproductive form of capital, housing and large private trucks (calling them cars is a misnomer) that provide only housing services to consumers and have no effect whatsoever on the productivity of labor.

According to a 2009 study by the Research Institute for Housing America, there are several differences between the US and Australia, the country with the second largest houses in the world: 

In Australia, lending standards were not eased to the same extent as elsewhere. For example, the riskier types of mortgages, such as non-conforming and negative amortization loans, that became common in the United States, were not features of Australian banks’ lending. In addition, Australian mortgages are “full recourse” following a court repossession action, and households generally understand that they cannot just hand the keys to the lender to extinguish the debt. The legal environment in Australia places a stronger obligation on lenders to make responsible lending decisions than is the case in the United States.

Now, riskier mortgages do not necessarily mean that more people will build oversized houses, however riskier mortgages make larger houses easier to buy. This is the number one reason why US houses are so much bigger than other countries - because they are more attainable.

Cultural Traits

It’s not just economics that play into why people in certain countries buy larger homes - it’s culture. The US in particular (Canada and Australia perhaps by proxy) has put a huge emphasis on the large house as a symbol of success and wealth. 

Image Source

Suburban living is the cultural picture of the American dream. It wasn’t always, but the development of media such as television coincided with suburbanization and spread its bucolic image far and wide. Later in the 20th century, the obsession of celebrity culture and fine living further solidified the ideal of the large house in the mind’s eye of Americans. In addition, outside the cities, the rental market is drastically small, so homeownership is the norm. 

In European countries (for example Italy) and Asian countries (for example Japan), multiple generations commonly live together in one house. Crowded space is associated with family rather than poverty. In America, every person has their own room, because that is our cultural definition of comfort, and until that definition is modified, the US will continue to build larger homes.

Well, that does it for this primer on why we build McMansions. Again, I apologize for the delay! Stay tuned for Thursday’s Arizona McMansion, and Sunday’s in-depth look at the McMansions of Canada. 

If you like this post, and want to see more like it (plus get sweet access to behind the scenes stuff), consider supporting me on Patreon! Not into recurring donations? Check out the McMansion Hell Store - 30% goes to charity.

#architecture #housing #sociology #mcmansions #mcmansion hell #mcmansionhell #design #urbanism #urban planning #houses #homes #zoning