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leesmustardgarden · 7 months

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Cooking with a Special Puppet Headcanons

P x (gn) Reader

Warnings/Tags: General game spoilers ofc, Sophia exhibiting the symptoms of an ED but there is a genuine canon Lore Reason I do not want to spoil sorry, P is a silly lil guy (affectionate), Gemini is a silly little guy (derogatory)

A/N: I miss taking culinary classes, so I coped by making this!! This was also an excuse to test out my new silly borders hehe

The first time you bring P into the kitchen, he accidentally makes a huge mess and feels so bad he starts avoiding the kitchen. If he needed you while you were in there, he’ll wait by the door until you come out even if it takes hours

It takes a lot of encouragement and patience to finally get him back in the kitchen, and even then he’s so careful of everything around him. It doesn’t always go well, and most of the time there’s still some accident that leaves a giant mess to clean up

It’s like watching a dragon in a china shop— every so often he catches on something and oh! Down comes all the pots and pans.

Gemini finds it hilarious but while he loves messing with P, he is also the one to tell him not to push it if he’s so stressed out and to take it little by little

P so sweet, he’s so caring and careful and yeah ok he can be mischievous but not in the sense that he’d purposefully make trouble for the people he cares for

In fact he tries to help you out by bringing around food for all the residents in the Hotel so you don’t have to do everything

Polendina takes Antonia’s meals to her and Pulcinella forces Venigni to actually eat when he forgets to

It’s very funny to watch, because as stubborn and eccentric as Venigni can be he cannot say no to his no. 1 bestie

Eugenié is silly and has to be reminded to eat (she gets too absorbed into her work), and Sophia usually refuses food. It’s worrying, but she says it’s alright and vaguely explains that she doesn’t need food 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

As the days go by and as he becomes more human and is able to control his strength better, he finally musters up the courage to ask you to teach him how to cook (which Gemini insists on being present for)

The first few times he is so shaky and afraid of everything in case it breaks, but after a few days he’ll start getting comfortable with the utensils and tools

Once he’s comfortable enough, he starts acting out small mischiefs and well

It’s hard to scold him when he’s finally overcome his fear of making a mess

“And then you carefully— No—“ The egg splats against the counter in seconds, spraying up to his freckled face. He pulls his hand up slowly, and with the most amused deadpan you’ve seen on him, turns his yolk-soaked palm to you. You don’t even fight the frown that settles on your face as Gemini coughs to hide a laugh.

“Nice one! I think—“ cough “— you’re getting better,” He says. You glare at him where P’s put him on the counter, and he laughs harder. You would strangle him, but that would probably just encourage the prick.

P looks innocently at you; his expression unchanging but a tilt in his shoulder gives away the fact that he knows what he’s doing. You’re sure that if he could laugh, he would be giggling in all his freckled cuteness. It softens your frown into fond exasperation as you reach a hand to wipe the egg off his face. He takes his clean legion hand and gently places it atop yours, pushing his cheek flush against your palm.

“Gemini is such a bad influence on you,” You say with a no heat in your voice. P looks up at you though his lashes, and you can almost see the mischief printed on his face.

“How am I a bad influence?” Gemini says indignantly, having the gall to sound offended.

You dip your hand into the bag of flour nearby, scoop out a handful, and throw it at him. He sputters and yelps, starting to complain. You’re too distracted by Gemini to notice the curious way P’s looking over at you and the bag of flour. He quietly slips his legion hand behind you when you move forward as your argument with Gemini progresses.

“That was actually so rude,“ Gemini says.

“Oh like you aren’t the one enabling him all the time.“

“When have I ever?”

“I don’t know— the art shop, for one?”

“That was such a long time ago!”

“Two days—!”

Flour hits your cheek, dusting your face in white. Gemini gets a second to laugh at you, before flour also hits him and his lamp topples over right into spilled egg. A bit away from you both, P is standing with his hands behind his back and the bag of flour peeking out from behind him. His face is twitching like it’s trying to smile, and you feel your heart melt at the sight. By the end of the day, you’re just glad the kitchen’s still standing.

#lies of p pinocchio #lies of p x reader #pinocchio x reader #lop x reader #p x reader #Lee’s writing ✍️

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archive2394934 · 1 year

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@wheelercore -> tags from this post.

No you're so right, I'd actually be shocked at this point if Virginia wasn't hooking up with another man while Victor was at war, hence Alice. It all makes perfect sense. Victor comes home from the war and Alice exists? I don't think he's so stupid as to really believe this was his kid but maybe Virginia "convinced" him it was, not so much because he's stupid but because he WANTED to believe it was, because the alternative is acknowledging his wife was a cheat-- which-- at this time was a SERIOUSLY bad and shameful thing, not just for Virginia herself but for Victor as well. At this point in time family and marriage was held in the highest possible esteem. Put this with the fact its OBVIOUS the Creels were Christian, this is why Victor is going on about sins and demons and would explain WHY he he says "punishing us for our sins" meaning his entire family, not just him, not just his mistake in the war, but because BACK THEN this would basically mean his entire family was built on sin. Built on a lie.

This could also be part of why the Creels moved from their old home town to Hawkins. Trying to get away from the "sin" and the shame, especially if the community knew that Victor was at war when Virginia fell pregnant with Alice and sure Virginia could insist it was Victors and Victor could back her up on it but people would know. Which just makes the suggestion they moved because of Henry's possible problems with school even more noxious because there they are using their probably disabled child as a scapegoat again. ALSO LET ME EDIT TO ADD THIS REAL QUICK: I cant help but imagine how it might have felt and looked to Victor if he knew for a fact that Henry WAS his biological child and HENRY was the one who was labeled as abnormal and broken by his teachers and doctors. We know back in this time period children like Henry, children who were "different" and had difficulties and "special needs" were often considered punishments to their families for sinning. So theres also THAT. And maybe part of Victors thing in forgiving Virginia for this wasn't just because it was a lot more awkward and painful not to in a sense but also because he was traumatized by a terrible mistake he made during the war. He comes home and finds out his wife has made a terrible mistake as well (or so she might have claimed) and he decides well how can I judge her? Like is that all theory? Sure, but it seems backed up enough by canon at this point. And I FULLY AGREE. Theres more going on, and I THINK the duffers have confirmed that they're going to be focusing on Henry's past a lot more next season-- I also feel like some things in the script were changed to make things a little more vague in order to keep folks guessing for s5 and not give everything away right off the bat. (Like Henry's transformation for example, I have a feeling that might have been changed the way it was BOTH to make it easier to translate to the screen but also to further obscure what the "line" between Henry and the MF actually is, so to speak. Cos I mean just think if we had the scene on screen in its original form how could people doubt that Henry might not be the big bad? Like if they SAW THE VINES transforming Henry in some weird attack (similar to what we saw with Billy) how could they deny he's not the one controlling them? I MEAN there should already be sufficient enough doubt with what we did see and the things we do know but I think a scene like that would p much confirm my thoughts and it seems the Duffer brothers are treating that a bit like a spoiler for the next season. (sorry Duffers if thats true I ratted y'all out a year or so in advance)

#henry creel #vecna #001 #:) the fact that it was such a stigma in that time to have child who was possibly disabled / nd is a real thing also #when me n u talk about henry and the creel family its -ancient philosophers meme-#but when the rest of the fandom does it its -angry baby meme-#love that for us smh #like moving to a new house + town might fix the shame of Virginias infidelity #but they still had henry their weird kid who was pissing off teachers and doctors were claiming was broken #the solution? :) have him institutionalized #call a doctor a SPECIALIST in the 'human mind' to come fix him #fixing him meaning either putting him through some fucked up mentally corrosive therapy (like we see with Terry) or simply keeping him shut #away in a mental hospital #like ppl do not seem to understand stranger things is a period piece they really dont #and they dont get how normal this sort of thing was back in the time periods ST deals with #the 30s-40s-50s were horrific to mentally ill/ND/disabled people #this was the era of highly glamourized eugenics-- all the people in this fandom who try to claim henry #would be a eugenicist are so out of their mind open your damn eyes he was a victim of eugenic ideals that were normalized back then #FROM HIS OWN MOTHER and possibly his father was complicit #anyway end tag rant this fandom shows their ass around this character so bad #I don’t want to apologise for Vecna’s murders – I’m not sorry

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phoenix-downer · 5 years

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Hello! I haven't played KH III yet but I plan to. I have come across some really hateful posts on tumblr and even twitter about Sora and Kairi being together. It appears some people are really upset that Sora and Riku didn't become a thing and have downplayed Sora x Kairi's relationship as something as forced and not having chemistry. I had no idea this was even a thing. Can you tell me where this hostility came from? I thought it was obvious that they had feelings for each other.

Hello! Thanks for the ask! There’s a lot to examine here, but I’ll do my best to try to tackle the whole issue with tact and empathy. Light/very vague spoilers for K/H/3, E/ndgame, and F/M/A follow (with slashes so they hopefully don’t show up in the tags).

First of all, I’m so sorry you’ve stumbled across those kinds of tweets and posts. If I could, I’d shield everyone from having to deal with such hatred and negativity about something they enjoy. Doesn’t matter what you ship; no one deserves to deal with that level of toxicity.

Imagine going into a room and hearing people talk loudly about something you love, talk about how much they hate it and how much it sucks. Doesn’t make you feel very welcome, does it? But that’s exactly what’s happening here - you’re not the only one who’s noticed this. I have had to block or mute so many people because of the kind of bashing you describe. People purposely tagging their hate so that fans can see it, saying nasty things and picking fights in a way that makes you wonder what they get out of being so cruel and vicious.

I’ve seen it so much that I’m extra sensitive to it now too; I block much more quickly than I did in the past. And I would advise other people to do the same. You don’t owe anyone access to your social media. They’re not entitled to your time or energy, either. You don’t owe it to them to read their hate. By blocking them, you take away part of their audience, you take away their attention. And the thing is, they want that attention. They want to make other people angry and miserable because they’re angry and miserable. And you don’t have to give them the satisfaction.

Sadly, because twitter and tumblr have such poor moderation, no one running these sites is doing much to stop these people. In fact, the platforms even encourage that kind of behavior, because the loudest people get the most attention. So that encourages and emboldens the kind of nasty behavior you’re seeing.

Now, this is not to say there is never room for criticism, because there is, but that is a very different thing from what you’re describing, which is plain old bashing. Criticism and critique are offered in the hope that something will improve; bashing is done to express pure vitriol, and it isn’t productive for anyone. It might feel good in the moment, but in the end it just leaves people bitter and empty.

There are plenty of people critiquing K/H and how the games went and how the various character arcs unfolded and how the relationships developed, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Shutting down all criticism isn’t healthy; it should be allowed and encouraged, as constructive criticism leads to healthy dialogue, both with other fans and with S/quare E/nix. And Square has listened to fans in the past; they’ve fixed issues with gameplay that occurred when 1.5 and 2.5 were ported to the PS4 and converted to 60 fps, for example.

Neither is there anything wrong with venting to a close friend in a private setting - DMs, PMs, on your personal blog or twitter account with the ship you’re criticizing censored somehow so that everyone who likes it doesn’t have to stumble across your venting. Heaven knows I’ve had to vent a lot to stay in the fandom without lashing out. The issue is when someone thinks it’s okay to force their anger and negativity onto other people who don’t want to see it or hear it.

So the question is, why are we stumbling across such strong feelings? Because it’s clear people feel pretty strongly about all this.

I don’t think there’s an easy answer as to why this is happening, but I’ll take a shot at explaining what might’ve happened all the same. I’m sure if you asked someone else, they might give you a different answer, and it’s worth getting multiple perspectives. This is just my two cents, and naturally, it’s going to be biased towards my experiences and preferences.

The shipwars in the K/ingdom H/earts fandom have been nasty for years. From what I can gather, they got really bad when KH2 was released, though I’m sure there was probably drama before then. S*kai fans and S*riku fans did not see eye to eye on how that game went, and it’s all been downhill ever since. People on both sides have been mean and nasty, I’ve seen them be nasty, hurling insults and slurs and accusing each other of awful things to the point that the question of “who started it” is pretty much moot at this point. A more productive question would be, “how can we end it and get along, or at least start treating each other better?”

Now, since I ship S*kai (obviously), I’ll share why this is such a touchy subject for me personally. I’ve been in fandom for a while now, and something I’ve noticed is just how much fans tend to hate female characters because of sexism and internalized misogyny.

I was in the M/C/U fandom before this, and Sh*ron’s actress got death threats around the time C/ivil W/ar came out from angry shippers. And then P*ggy’s actress has likewise been harassed after E/ndgame came out by, again, angry shippers. I was a big F/M/A fan back in the day, and W*nry got so much hate from, you guessed it, angry shippers. I remember a friend back then rolling her eyes and bashing W*nry, and when I asked her why she hated her, she couldn’t really give me a clear answer other than that she was “whiny.”

Heaven forbid a female character not be completely perfect.

Over and over, I saw this pattern repeating. A female character gets hate because there is a popular alternate pairing that she “gets in the way of.” Even before I had the vocabulary to talk about it, the hatred just struck me as very gendered. I never saw that level of hatred for any of the male characters unless they were written to be hated (hello Shou T*cker). And I was likewise harsher on female characters than on their male counterparts. It took me years to realize what I was doing and to try to put a stop to it.

So then I came to the K/ingdom H/earts fandom with all that background and baggage, dealing with years of people hating characters I liked and looked up to and identified with, and I saw the same thing happening again. Yet another female character getting nasty hate because of her gender, because she dared to like a boy who was shipped with another boy. Because she dared to fall in love. How dare she have feelings, how dare she be feminine, how dare she wear pink and have a flowery Keyblade. How dare her strength of heart be stronger than her physical strength. There is only one kind of strength that matters, and it’s how hard you can kick someone’s ass (wrong, wrong, wrong, and one look at the whole power of friendship thing this series revolves around would tell you that).

How dare K*iri not be an instant expert at fighting, which is cruel and ironic because if she was an instant expert at fighting, everyone would be crying Mary Sue. How dare she sass and tease S*ra, she’s such a bitch. Oh, she doesn’t tease him as much in K/H/3 and is more gentle and supportive because he’s going through hell and nearly loses everything and she knows he needs her support now more than ever? She’s a complete pushover!

See what I mean by how hard people are on female characters? K*iri can’t win no matter what she does. She could have the best character arc ever post K/H/3 and people would still find something to complain about. That’s not to say I don’t have issues with how she’s written, I just think the criticisms against her tend to be way overblown. There aren’t enough discussions about how she could improve moving forward (though I have seen them, and thank you to those of you who do have them!), instead people just write her off completely as useless and worthless and want to improve her character by… dropping her out of the story completely (and yes, I’ve run into someone who actually thought this would be a good thing and always felt the need to talk about it, and it absolutely drove me up the wall).

And worst of all, she can’t win because S*ra fell in love with her. Really, it’s ironic that she gets as much hate as she does for something S*ra did. She had no control over S*ra falling in love with her, and yet she is absolutely despised by people because he did. She isn’t “good enough” for him apparently, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I share all this to explain why I was so sensitive to the issue coming in. I saw the same thing happening I’d experienced time and again and I was so exhausted. So tired of it. I didn’t want to deal with it again, and I was on my guard right from the start. Especially because it’s so normalized in online KH communities to bash K*iri and S*kai. The major ones, too, with lots of people and a wide range of (or lack thereof) of shipping preferences, not just dedicated shipping groups. Try to go an entire discussion without seeing it come up… it’s a lot harder than you might think.

At first I tried to be patient and understanding. Other people have different tastes, and I wanted to be understanding of that. But after years of watching the bashing happen, my patience ran thin. I was sick of seeing it enabled in major K/H communities, sick of seeing mods refuse to put a stop to it, or worse, low-key join in with the bashing, sick of having to put up with so much negativity when all I wanted was somewhere to discuss something I enjoyed. Some people seemed almost gleeful, almost eager in their bashing; any time K*iri was brought up, they felt compelled to express their hatred for her. They were more obsessed with her than her actual fans were; felt more passionately (albeit negatively) about S*kai than some actual S*kai shippers did.

When I reached that point, the point where I was tempted to be negative and snappy and rude, I knew I couldn’t engage with certain people anymore. So I stopped trying. I searched for S*kai fans here on tumblr and stuck with them. I didn’t want to add to an already tense situation, and thankfully, there are other people who feel the same way (but more on that later).

And on the S*riku side of things, some of them have shared that they have been told nasty homophobic things for shipping S*riku. And for many of them, I’m sure S*riku is a way of expressing their identity, a way of exploring their feelings and expressing them in a safe, welcoming way with fellow fans who get what they’re going through. Representation has gotten better in recent years (though it still has a long way to go), but back when the K/H games were first coming out, things were different, and people had to take what they could get from canon and run with it if they wanted to see more content that represented them.

I’ve also seen a few people say that certain S*kai fans went out of their way to message them and rub what happened in K/H/3 in their faces. That kind of gloating is bound to upset anyone, yikes. Canon has become the new gold standard for shipping in the last decade or so, and it has sadly been weaponized in the ever-nastier ship wars, when really, a ship’s value shouldn’t be based on how “canon” it is but on the joy it brings to people.

So yeah, we have a situation where enough people on both sides were treating others poorly that everyone got defensive, because how could you not when people keep attacking something you love, especially if you feel strongly about it/associate it with your identity? And that made people more likely to lash out, and when they did, people got even more defensive, and the cycle repeated, over and over and over again.

And you know how I mentioned I sought refuge with likeminded fans? I think that happened all over the fandom. People seek out those who will support them and support their beliefs and form identities and communities based around them… and that’s a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it’s great to get so much support, especially if you’re seeking refuge from a particularly nasty ship war. Having a safe place to vent and unwind and finally get to talk about what you love without fear of getting hate over it is awesome.

On the other hand, things like echo chambers, confirmation bias, groupthink, and the false consensus effect flourish in those kinds of situations. If all you hear is that XYZ pairing must be canon or will be canon in a future game from the group of people you’ve surrounded yourself with, and everyone enthusiastically agrees because everyone ships the same thing you do and of course no one is going to rain on that parade, it can come as quite a shock when a new piece of canon comes out and doesn’t align to your expectations. Especially if you’ve spent years expecting canon to align with your expectations.

We lose something when we can’t engage in healthy dialogue with people who disagree with us. Our perceptions get warped, our memories might even get warped, and what we could’ve sworn was canon… we might be surprised to see wasn’t, when we revisit the source material with a more critical eye or listen to someone who sees things differently than we do.

But how can we have that healthy dialogue when there’s been so much bad blood? How can we listen to each other when there’s no trust? It’s nearly impossible, so instead we reinforce the beliefs and ideas our own communities already hold fast to, and the cycle continues. We draw lines in the sand separating “us” vs. “them” and don’t give each other a chance. Not only does this alienate people on opposite ends of the shipping spectrum, it also alienates multishippers because they’re considered “traitors” to both sides, and that is an uncomfortable place to be.

I think that’s why you find the whole thing so jarring. I’m guessing you might not be as heavily involved with the fandom as I am, and have thus been largely immune from the perils of echo chambers and confirmation bias. So for you it must seem really weird that something that seems clear to you is so contentious to other people. I don’t say this to throw shade at anyone, because I know the same thing would’ve happened if the pairings had gotten switched around. It’s more of an observation of a phenomenon I’ve seen happen over and over again throughout the years.

So all of that is to say, things are tense because of all these backgrounds and experiences and histories people bring into the fandom. No one exists in a vacuum, and things were already tense before K/H/3 even came out. K/ingdom H/earts has been such an important part of many people’s lives and growing up experiences that they feel a deep connection to it and almost a sense of ownership of it. It’s a shared story, a shared experience. It belongs to all of us, in a way, and yet it’s still N*mura’s baby.

And that’s where we run into more issues. How much say should fans have in a work of art? Does the creator get the final say in interpretation, or should she accept that once her creation has been released into the world, it’s up to other people to interpret what she meant? There are no easy answers to these kinds of questions, and they’re widely debated and discussed (see: the whole death of the author debacle).

However, while I think feeling a sense of ownership and investment in a piece of art is totally fine, it crosses the line when it gets into the realm of entitlement. By this I do not mean asking for more representation, because that is a perfectly good thing to ask for; I mean demanding that the creators cater to your whims… or else. I mean contacting people who worked on the game on twitter and demanding they change the story to make it “right.” I mean directly telling one of the VAs you want her replaced because you thought she did a bad job. And yes, I am talking about actual stuff I’ve seen happen in this very fandom. All of that has also left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and other people I’ve talked to have felt the same.

That being said, shipping in and of itself is not the problem. For every nasty tweet and bashing post out there, there are plenty of kind and good people who are just there to enjoy their ships. Lovely artists and talented writers and skilled gif makers and editors creating a wealth of beautiful content for something they love. People who would never harass others for their shipping preferences and are disgusted by those who do. Unfortunately, they’re not the ones getting the attention, and they’re probably not the ones you’re going to run into if you ship a different ship, as they tend to stick to their own spaces out of courtesy and respect.

This means that the people you are more likely to run into are the ones who want to pick fights. The ones who bash and stir up drama and tell people to kill themselves for shipping XYZ. While there are plenty of people being cruel and nasty and toxic, there are good people in the fandom too. Kind, caring people who will see you as a person first and not an XYZ, even if they don’t agree with you on everything. They’re quiet(er), because kindness isn’t usually flashy and showy, but they’re here. You just have to know how to find them.

Thanks for the ask! I tried to answer this as fairly as I could, based on my observations and things I’ve been stewing over for a while now, so I hope it sheds more light on the situation.

#answer #kagome1991 #long post #i don't usually participate in the discourseTM but these thoughts have been on my mind for a while and I wanted to get them written out #kh discourse #kh3 spoilers #fma spoilers #endgame spoilers #no super heavy spoilers or anything I'm just tagging them to be safe

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quarterfromcanon · 4 years

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1-4. For the asks

Thank you so much for sending these! <3

Once I started to answer them, I realized there were comparatively few recent television shows appearing on the list. I seemed to keep gravitating toward older ones I remembered from years ago. I took a handful of days to mull it over in case I was forgetting something, but nothing else comes to mind. Maybe my ongoing list of Shows to Watch During Quarantine will turn up some fresh results but, for now, it looks like I’ll be taking a little trip down memory lane. :)

This turned out to be a pretty long and rambly post, so I’ll stow it under the cut!

Top 5 TV Shows

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I can’t imagine this surprises anyone who has been following this blog for the past two years or so. It brought fellow fans into my life, got me back into writing fic, and prompted countless tags of meta. It’s the show my mind drifts to on a weekly basis (if not daily) even a full year after the finale. Just when it seemed I’d reached an age where that level of intense fandom involvement and character attachment might be fading, it proved that quite the opposite was true. I’m very thankful to the series for that, and for the people whose paths have crossed mine as a result.

2. Schitt’s Creek - This is my #1 Feel Good show and, though I’ve been dodging spoilers for the final season until it gets uploaded to Netflix, I get the impression that it will remain in that top spot. The world feels softer and more hopeful there. It’s healing for my soul. I’m going to have a dreadfully difficult time saying goodbye, but I’m glad there are six season to revisit whenever I want.

3. Stranger Things - The theme song alone sends such a rush of excitement through me. I love the aesthetic and the atmosphere. I sometimes have mixed feelings about the romances but the FRIENDSHIPS sure do have a direct line to my heartstrings. I think the way they’ve combined media influences into their own story is really neat. You get something that’s new and engaging, but you can also go back and enjoy the sources of inspiration with fresh appreciation.

4. Joan of Arcadia - I can’t help it. The snark, the jackets, the early 2000s songs, the performances -- the nostalgia for this show is so strong. It’s not without its problems, but it did have some really good things to offer as well. I remember an episode that was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of a trigger, and the effect it could have on a person if exposed to one of theirs. The series dealt a lot with grief and the many forms it can take (I STILL can’t hear Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” without getting misty-eyed). I’m also surprised, looking back, at the somewhat positive way I recall them discussing homosexuality on the several occasions that it came up in the show. Not to give too much credit since I don’t think there were recurring canonically LGBTQIA+ characters but, for a kid who spent most days around closed-minded people of a certain religious leaning, it was meaningful along my individual journey. I’d like to provide the several examples that are most vivid in my memory:

A. A girl with short hair, short nails, little to no makeup, and a bulky leather jacket is generally assumed to be a lesbian by the bullies at school. The show directly confronts the fact that “gay” should not be used an insult, that identity should not be assumed without the person telling you so, AND makes sure that the character in question never pushes back by saying harmful things about lesbians despite not actually being one herself.

B. A boy who is questioning is able to confide in his big brother and have a fairly calm conversation about it; the awkwardness mostly comes from neither of them being accustomed to openly discussing emotions, not from the possibility of a negative response regarding the subject matter.

C. Another character is accidentally discovered to be gay (he only appears in the one episode, if my memory serves), and some of the leads have the opportunity to share that for personal gain. However, even though he is a popular jock who is a bit of a jerk in the hallways, the show makes it clear that the right choice is still to leave the telling of that information up to him and him alone.

Like I mentioned, it can’t be said that representation was in abundance here - for instance, I don’t believe anything other than straight or gay was presented as a possibility - but any accepting acknowledgement in a faith-centric series was something for me to hold on to in my still-deeply-closeted days. As a final Very Important personal side note, this show brought Judith Montgomery into my life (pictured below on the left), and that feels like it merits a shoutout for being what I consider a rather significant marker in my awakening.

THE OVERWHELMING CRUSH I HAD - and still have - is one for the books.

5. Pushing Daisies - This is another show with an aesthetic I adore. The series has such a fun, whimsical energy. The crime-solving! The clothes! The cast! There's a lot to love. It’s the kind of world I wish I could visit... well, minus the evidently rampant murder rate.

Top 5 Overrated TV Shows

1. Once Upon A Time - *deep sigh* I tried to stick with it for so long. I think I’ve seen five out of the seven seasons in their entirety. It just felt like everything got mired down by excessive (and increasingly convoluted) subplots, often for the purpose of tossing in as many fairytale and/or Disney characters as possible. Plus, quite honestly, there was too much emphasis on romantic love. For a show whose first season involved a curse being broken by [potential spoiler, I suppose] a mother kissing her son’s forehead, I ultimately found myself up to my ears in romantic ships. It reached such a stifling extent that, if you were not particularly attached to those pairings, there wasn’t a whole lot else to entice further viewing.

2. Under the Dome - I don’t know for certain what the general public opinion of this series was, but it felt like the commercials always featured alleged rave reviews, so I figured I could include it here. I was vaguely interested in Season 1, mainly as a fan of Rachelle Lefevre’s work. Season 2 pulled me in with the introduction of a new townsperson and I threw WAY too much of my heart into that attachment, which backfired when that character was killed. I made quite the spectacle of my heartbreak, so much so that my family doesn’t let me mention this show around them anymore. :P Season 3 was, to phrase it delicately, not a great time. The series did introduce me to a few new-to-me actors, though, so that was cool.

3. Bates Motel - Even the incentive of learning that the two characters I liked most share a lot of screen time later in the series hasn’t been enough to call me back to this one. I don’t know if it was the pacing that put me off or what, but the prospect of finishing the remaining seasons feels so daunting. There are evidently five seasons in total and I believe I’ve only seen two of them thus far. I will probably muddle through it someday just to see how it goes, but the fact that I am so disinclined to prioritize it made this feel like a fair addition to the list.

4. Lost - My interest in this series unfortunately waned right before fervent fandom spiked. I don’t have any specific complaints that come to mind about what I saw; I just sort of drifted and then stayed away. Teachers I liked and peers I spent time with were starting to latch on to the show and I couldn’t find even the slightest inclination to give it a second try. However, did I still dutifully read all the latest installments in my friend’s Sawyer Ford and Kate Austen fanfiction when she passed me handwritten copies at lunch? Sure. I was glad it made her happy, even if I was no longer a viewer.

5. Hemlock Grove - I say this as someone who still mourns the fates of some characters in this show, so I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that the series stopped being able to make me feel anything. I’m just of the opinion that, in some ways, it might’ve been better off stopping at one season. That’s where the book it was based on ends, and things just didn’t feel as cohesive after that. Season 3 especially was - borrowing from my above review of Under the Dome - not a great time. That being said, there are also certain elements from the book that I could’ve done without in the Season 1 adaptation but... well... here we are.

Top 5 Underrated TV Shows

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Another one that won’t surprise followers of this blog. I have rhapsodized about it quite frequently since I found it a little over a month ago. It’s a period piece mystery miniseries with LGBTQIA+ representation, gorgeous costumes, and Samara Weaving. This felt specifically designed to wedge its way into my heart, and I’m quite content with the space it now occupies.

2. Dark - I’m so intrigued by the overlapping timelines with all of the morally gray characters. It’s possible to like one of these people in the timeline where they’re young but dislike them as adults, or vice versa. It also makes me think of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk a little tiny bit with the idea that time travel, specifically tampering with your own timeline, might make you physically and behaviorally unrecognizable to yourself. And the SONG CHOICES! I have gotten some solid new music selections from this series.

3. Sense8 - I still need to watch the finale. I really do. But I knew it would make me sad so I’ve avoided it for... two years now? Pretty close, I think. The concept is fascinating and the cast is so strong. Plus the cinematography! They came up with some of the coolest ways to depict the link these characters share and what it’s like when they connect over distance. The planning and careful editing it all must’ve taken... I remain in awe.

4. Penny Dreadful - There were definitely some story/writing choices I didn’t particularly like along the way, but I did get engrossed in the creepy goodness and the performances -- Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives most of all. It left me wishing for more period piece “monster mash” stories, because having all those classic characters in one place was a blast. It also helped me understand why Helen McCrory was once slated to play Bellatrix Lestrange because she can be terrifying. Oh and Sarah Greene in her Wild West outfits? Perdita Weeks with short red hair in fencing garb, and later in all leather with boots and a long jacket? I WAS NOT PREPARED AND I HAVE STILL NOT RECOVERED. I NEVER WILL.

5. Wonderfalls - There’s some cringe-inducing handling of certain representation in the series, but I have such a weak spot for quippy outcasts who become reluctant chosen ones (Joan Girardi in Joan of Arcadia, Wynonna Earp, Jaye Tyler in this series, et cetera). I also really love the sibling dynamics here. They bicker, tease one another, help each other out of trouble, and have rare but genuine heart-to-hearts. Caroline, Lee, and Katie all did such a great job blending their characters’ adult personalities with certain childhood attributes that rise to the surface in the presence of family.

Top 5 Movies

1. Addams Family Values - I’ve rewatched this movie at least once annually since I found it in Media Play at age 13. Usually, I’ll play it around Halloween or, at the latest, Thanksgiving. It’s mouth-along-with-every-line level ingrained in my memory. I find myself leaning forward in my seat before favorite parts because I’m still that excited to relive them. Why this movie, and why this devotion to such a degree? It’s hard to explain, even to myself. I can tell you, however, that I hold up every other portrayal of the Addams characters to the versions found in this. Everybody in the cast just feels that perfect for their part.

2. Clue - I was already pretty fond of this movie to begin with, but then my sister got older and claimed it as a favorite of her own, so now she just supplies me with further excuses to watch it repeatedly. It’s also been a bonding piece of media with a couple of close friends and such through the years. It’s incredible to think not everyone in it was the first choice for their roles; what everybody brings to the table is so top-notch that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also LOVE knowing that it originally went to theaters with different endings depending on which showing you attended. I gather people weren’t terribly thrilled with the stunt back then, but I kinda think some moviegoers would be into that approach these days? Then again, one hit that tried something different tends to start a fad, so maybe I’d end up regretting the suggestion after a while. :P

3. The Craft - This. Movie. Yes, Act III is a major bummer even though I know it’s coming, and I’ll always wish it ended differently. Even so. This. Movie. I tend to headcanon mostly for shows and sometimes books, but The Craft is a beloved exception. I love so much about it: the magic, the music, the clothes, the settings, the dynamics within the friend group, the performances. I had no idea when I first got the DVD at 17 that it would become such a part of my life, but I’m so glad it found its way to me.

4. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion - The soundtrack is a glorious ’80s and ’90s treat for my ears. The colorful costumes are perfectly suited to the main characters’ version of the world. There are so many great lines and it feels like everyone is having a lot of fun in their roles. I LOVE HEATHER MOONEY SO MUCH. She’s my awful, scathingly sarcastic, little grungy grump and she fills my heart with joy.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I was pretty sure at least one of the three had to appear on here. I think, if I were to tally them all up, The Return of the King features most of my favorite moments, so it wins the spot. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”, ‘Edge of Night,’ Éowyn in battle, The Army of the Dead, ‘Into the West’... I end up crying during the end credits every time. So, yeah, ultimately, I would choose the third part of the trilogy if I could only watch one.

Phew, that’s it! All the questions answered, all the shows and movies listed! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all, and thanks again to @monaiargancoconutsoy for sending in the prompts! <3

#About Me #Answered Asks

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yourcroweater · 7 years

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C o r r u p t

Summary: Giulia grew up without knowing her real father’s identity. And now, after 25 years she knows his name and exactly where he is. She leaves everything behind as she heads to Charming to get to know him -- Alexander “Tig” Trager. She didn’t receive the welcome she expected from him, or the Sons of Anarchy and it’s enough to make her want to go back to Oakland, her hometown. But a certain Scot convinces her to stay for a little longer. Will she stay and hopefully create a relationship with her real father? If not with him then with Chibs Telford?

A/N: Yet another Sons of Anarchy fic -- also another Chibs fic (no, I never get tired of those). Keep in mind that this story takes place in season 5 of SoA, which means spoilers if you haven’t finished the series. I know the summary is pretty vague but I didn’t want to reveal too much of Giulia’s story there. The first chapter is set in Oakland, giving you a bit of backstory on her and her connections. She may not have been raised by Tig but there’s a lot of similarities between the two. Somewhat of a freak with a love for bikes and inappropriate jokes. The quote in the beginning is from a David Bowie song, Cat People. I altered it a bit so it could fit better with the character.

Tag list (I’m tagging everyone I tag on A Little Wicked, if you wish to be removed of this taglist tell me, same goes if you want to be added): @telford-ortiz-teller @telfords-glasgow-smile @jaaxsoadeaanspn @i-was-made-of-nutella @i-am-the-luna @teller-telford-old-lady @make-things-beautiful2 @meggzz21 @sam-samcro @dmagicreality @telfords-glasgow-smile @i-like-it-heavy-so-i-can-panic

Chapter 1

“see these eyes so blue

I can stare for a thousand years

colder than the moon

well it's been so long”

“Happy birthday!” people said in unison as I opened the door to my parents house. I blinked, my jaw going a bit slack as I took in the view before me. I turned to my mother, finally piecing together why she insisted we dropped by her house before going to the restaurant. She used the excuse that she wanted to change her dress -- she insisted with me that her outfit was ‘too casual’. Safe to say I had never -- in all my 24 years, well, 25 now -- seen my mother dressed as anything close to casual. The woman walked around like it was damn fashion show.

My mom grinned, white teeth and red lipstick before pulling me into a hug.

“Surprise, principessa,” she said in the hug. I hugged her back, a smile spread over my face. “Hope you don’t mind the detour.” Her italian accent was faint after so many years in America. She was true italian, unlike my stepfather. His family came from Sicily, where my mother was born, but he was born and raised in America.

“Are you kidding me? I love it,” I reassured her, pulling away to show her my smile. I didn’t love it to be completely honest, but my mom did, and, although it was my birthday, I wanted to see her happy. I wasn’t one for extravagant parties and those were very common, seeing as I grew up among the Italian Mafia.

I walked into the packed living room with my mom on my side so I could greet everyone who had bothered to come to my birthday. It wasn’t a surprise all the families were there -- Abruzzi, Buscetta, Palermo -- it would be disrespectful if they didn’t appear to Jimmy Cacuzza’s stepdaughter’s birthday. Jimmy was the head of the families, people owed him respect. I wasn’t mafia, not officially, but I owed him respect too, unfortunately.

Jimmy may have raised me but we didn’t exactly get along. We never got that father-daughter relationship, not even close to it. My mother had me before she met Jimmy and they got married right when I turned two years old. I never met my real father and my mom, despite my insistence over the years, had never told me who he was. I gave up when I was 16, thinking that well, if my mom didn’t want to tell me who he was and he never wanted to meet me, he wasn’t worth it anyway.

So I had Jimmy growing up. He never allowed me to call him dad -- I tried when I was around 10 and he shut me down fast. I should only refer to him as Jimmy or sir. I always chose to call him Jimmy. I’d be caught dead if I gave him the satisfaction of addressing him as sir.

Still, shitty father figure or not, I owed him a few things. Like a roof over my head, good food, the clothes, the makeup, I even bought my bike with his fucking money. No, I didn’t have a Mafia Princess credit card (that’s what I chose to call it) -- though I knew the Palermo daughters had them -- but I worked for Jimmy on the regular and he payed me a large amount of cash for my services. I lived very comfortably for a woman my age -- I owned a large loft in one of Oakland’s tallest buildings. My room had a view for the whole city, my clothes weren’t expensive but they were of good quality. All bought with blood stained mafia money. Ain’t life fun?

“Happy birthday, Giulia,” Jimmy boomed, crossing the living room with my half-brother on his ankles. He opened his arms to me and hugged me, planting a kiss on my cheek.

“Thanks, Jimmy. Really, this means a lot,” I smiled after he stepped away. I don’t know whose idea it was to throw me a surprise party but I wasn’t lying when I said it meant a lot.

I may not like mafia parties but having one thrown for me was impressive, especially one thrown on Jimmy’s home. I was his stepdaughter indeed, but I didn’t carry the Cacuzza surname -- all I had to show was my mother’s maiden name, Lucchese -- Jimmy didn’t have to do this for me, especially not at his own house, and the fact that he did showed that he appreciated me. If not me, then the things I did for the mafia.

“You’re almost as old as Mom now,” my brother said as way of greeting, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around me. He had turned 18 only two months ago but he was already taller than me. Being 18 meant that he could get involved in mafia affairs now, he’d be on his way to become a made man.

“Show some respect, Vito,” my mother complained but she smiled as she spoke. My brother and I laughed but we soon stopped when Jimmy smashed his lips against my mother’s mouth.

The night carried with women talking, wives and daughters separate from their husbands and sons. Laughter only got louder after too many glasses of wine, we only shut up to stuff our faces with food -- which I was more than happy to do, Jimmy owned a few italian restaurants and the food in these parties were magnificent seeing as they always catered.

I was on my way to the bathroom, already a bit tipsy, when my mom pulled me into a corner of the corridor. I knew she had something to tell me the moment I set eyes on her. It wasn’t gossip though, her brows furrowed differently. It was serious. I noticed she had also chosen an empty hallway to do this -- she didn’t want anyone to hear what she was about to say.

“What is it?” I blurted out.

“I needed to give you this,” she held out a folded napkin between her long red nails. I took it, frowning as I moved it around to unfold, but my mom covered my hands with her own. I looked up questioningly at her. “This my birthday gift to you. I only decided to give you this 10 minutes ago and I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing in doing so. But you deserve to know, Giulia.”

I stared at her, trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about. My mom stood very close to me as she spoke and she was giving me this look, like I was supposed to understand what she said. Like she was sharing a secret.

A little too late, it clicked.

“Why now?” I asked, my hand closing around the napkin.

“I tried to keep you away from the things your father is involved with. Your real father,” she added, indicating the napkin with her chin. Hearing her confirm what was on it made my heart jump with excitement. Twenty five years later -- too long, but I finally had my father’s identity in my hands, quite literally. “Didn’t make much difference,” she scoffed, “I know Jimmy pulled you into the mafia, he won’t tell me shit and I’m smart enough not to ask but I know you… take care… of some things for him. I can’t change that anymore, you’re a woman, you make your own choices. But I tried, Giulia, I did try to keep you away from violence.”

“You married a mobster, Mom,” I replied lightly. “Plenty of violence there.”

She shook her head, a few strands of her light brown hair falling from her hairdo.

“Yes, I know. But at least with Jimmy I can pretend it doesn’t exist. I get to hide in this house and play housewife, wear Versace and drink wine. That’s not how it works on the kind of life your father leads,” her dark eyes wandered away from me, as if she was remembering something. Apparently, my real father was as much of a criminal as my stepfather. Great. Crime runs in the family. No way was I gonna come out normal. Not that I ever thought I was normal. Most people thought I was a freak. “One more thing. H-He doesn’t know about you. I never told him I got pregnant.”

The truth sank in slowly. I grew up asking my mom about my real father. Asking her who he was, how she met him, why he wasn’t around, why he didn’t reach out. Only thing my mom had told me was that I looked like him, which wasn’t really a surprise -- I looked nothing like my mother. I simply had to look like my dad. While my mom’s skin was naturally bronzed, mine was pale; her eyes were of the darkest brown, while mine were from a very clear electric blue; my lips were wide and a bit shapeless, while hers were defined and small; my hair was dark and thick, always cascading down my back on large curls.

All my life I pictured what my real father looked like of off my own appearance and now I’d get to meet him. I had wondered about him, what was he like? Was he gentle? Funny? Did he make dad jokes like dads so often do in movies? Was he stern? How tall was he? And most of all, why did he ignore me? That’s what my mom told me -- that he had never wanted to meet me. Turns out it was a lie.

“You let me believe he didn’t want me,” I finally declared, cutting daggers with my eyes as I stared at my mother. I put out the coldest exterior I could manage, not wanting to show her how hurt I really was. Acting cold was well within my set of skills, but that was it, only a skill. I was cold about certain things, had to be with what I did for a living, but feelings? I couldn’t be cold about them, I felt everything. But right now, drunk and still startled and angry, I could only manage cold. Otherwise I’d explode into yelling and crying.

My mom winced as if my words stung. I hoped they did.

“I’m sorry, Giulia. I really am. Shouldn’t have kept this from you. But try to understand… your father and I… we didn’t date. We, um, had sex a few times and that was it. He was in the middle of a divorce, his ex was trying to keep his daughters away from him, things were difficult. I couldn’t tell him I was pregnant. I didn’t want to do that to him and I’d seen enough of his life to know that I didn’t want the same for my child.”

“I have sisters too?! What the fuck, Mom. You kept a whole family hidden from me,” I accused, trying to keep my voice down. “You lied to me! Jesus. Fuck.” I stepped away from her, shaking my head. My mom and I were the greatest of friends, we shared everything with each other. Having her lie to me about all this made me feel incredibly betrayed.

Her eyes welled with tears as she looked at me, her lips trembling.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I thought you’d like to know. Jimmy loves you in his own way but he’s not your father. Never could be,” he pressed her lips together when her voice faltered. “I wrote where you can find him. His name is there, too. I hope you two can get along better than you did with Jimmy.” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before disappearing down to the hallway.

Alone in the hallway I tried to summon the tears that had been threatening to spill but they didn’t come. I took several breaths to calm myself before opening the napkin and reading it. Teller-Morrow Automotive, Charming, California. Alexander Trager.

Wow, was my first thought. My dad has a cool name. I suddenly felt like I was 10 again. Trager. That was my last name. I smiled, despite my anger. It also sounded like my father was a mechanic, besides being a criminal, that is. My mom had hinted enough at it.

I wasn’t disappointed that he was a criminal, to be honest. Didn’t matter to me. I grew up among criminals, I myself was one, and I knew they could be good people. It’s not like I ever imagined my dad to be something cool like an astronaut or a rock star (I totally did).

My mom deprived me of 25 years without a father, I wasn’t wasting any more time. I was taking my bike tomorrow and heading to Charming, wherever that was.

“Giulia,” Jimmy called from behind me. I stuck the napkin down my dress’ cleavage and turned around to meet him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, great. You need me?”

“I do, actually,” he cast me a meaningful look. Really? On my birthday? “Meet me out front in five.”

“Watch your feet,” Jimmy warned, grabbing my elbow and pulling me back slightly. I stopped myself just in time from stepping on a puddle of blood. Would have ruined a perfectly good pair of heels.

I looked around the scene and sighed.

Jimmy had broken me away from my party only to take me to a warehouse on the other side of Oakland. It was dark in there, except for one yellow light that dimly illuminated the two corpses lying right in front of me. They didn’t stink and their skin still looked rosy -- dead in less than an hour I’d say. The blood was still probably warm. Both men lying on the ground had received gunshots to the head, large caliber by the looks of it -- their heads were practically blown off.

Mafia business truly never stopped. Jimmy had been on the party the entire time while these two men were gunned down -- probably on Jimmy’s orders, or maybe their deaths weren’t supposed to happen, not now, not here at least. Didn’t matter. What mattered is that Jimmy wanted them gone and that’s why he brought me to the crime scene. I was a cleaner.

I’ll admit that wasn’t my first career choice. I wanted to be a doctor growing up, but my grades had always been shit and I didn’t put too much effort in my studies. Couldn’t get into med school even if I wanted to. Veterinary was my second choice -- I loved animals and I was never squeamish about blood. I got into college, was in my second year, things were going well when it happened. It was an accident, but it happened.

My mother accused the maid of stealing her jewelry and they got into an argument at the top of the stairs. According to my mom, the maid tripped and fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. Jimmy was out of town with my brother, my mother and I were the only people at home. I called Jimmy to explain the situation and he sent his cleaner.

This cleaner, Tommaso, was an old guy -- he had so many wrinkles that it was hard to distinguish his mouth from the rest of his face. He could drop dead at any moment, all frail and weak looking. I knew he wouldn’t be able to, erm, dispose of the maid without help -- she was a very a large woman -- so, despite my mother’s protests, I volunteered to help. Tommaso explained the process to me and he was pleasantly surprised to see how unaffected I was by the whole thing.

I understood I should be affected by it and the fact I wasn’t affected, meant that, perhaps, there was something wrong with me. My logic was pretty simple, though: the body was just a shell, how it was disposed of wasn’t important. Tommaso took it upon himself to teach me how to clean -- after having Jimmy’s approval. Tommaso was dying, he knew that, and he wanted to leave someone capable of doing his job after he was gone.

Tommaso died three years ago and I’ve been doing his job since. I dropped out of college, figured veterinary school could be put on the background for a while.

I knew people thought I was freak for doing a job like this and I knew it was wrong. I never came up with excuses for the shit I did -- I could be arrested for it and I knew that by cleaning bodies I was depriving a lot of families of proper goodbyes and of peace. To be honest, I avoided thinking too much about this part.

Sounds easy when I put it this way but I had dreams about talking corpses sometimes, blaming me for their restlessness. Only thing keeping me levelheaded was going to church and asking God for forgiveness. If no one could forgive me, then I hoped He would.

“Nothing says ‘happy birthday’ like dead bodies,” I muttered, crossing my arms and glancing at Jimmy.

“Yeah, hoping this could compensate the dead bodies,” Jimmy said, pulling an envelope from inside his tailored suit and handing it to me.

I accepted the envelope and opened it. There was a large quantity of money inside, way larger than I usually received.

“How much is in here?” I asked, unable to conceal my admiration.

“12k. I know you charge 4k per body, the other 4k are my birthday gift to you,” he replied.

“Wow,” I stared at Jimmy, still awestruck. “Thanks, Jimmy. You needn’t have.”

“Course I did. You help this family a lot. You keep quiet and you don’t go nosing around. My way of saying thank you, Giulia,” he smiled approvingly. I rarely ever found myself on the benevolent side of Jimmy Cacuzza, not that he was an asshole to me but he tended to be indifferent. This was as close as I would get from a real compliment. “Now, what do you need? I’ll have my guys go pick up whatever you need,” he pointed at the three guys stood by the entrance.

I looked at the scene before me again. This would take a good few hours. I’d have to clean all the blood and make all traces of it disappear, pluck out the teeth from both corpses and finally dissolve the bodies -- the longest part of the process. I’d get out of there by the crack of dawn. I’d get bored and hungry while I worked but at least I’d become 12k richer by the end of it.

I listed all the materials necessary to dispose of the bodies while one of Jimmy’s men took notes on his phone.

“I’ll also need a change of clothes, cheap ones that can be burned later. Shoes too. And oh, if you could stop by Taco Bell and grab me something to eat it’d be great, I’m starving,” I finished, placing a hand over my stomach.

Jimmy and the guy gave me funny looks, glancing quickly between me and the dead bodies. Bet Jimmy was regretting giving me that extra 4k.

“It’s just work. Like having lunch on your desk. Except I don’t have paperwork,” I tried to explain. Judging by their faces, it only made them think I was an even bigger freak.

Well, I didn’t care. It really didn’t bother me. Part of me detached while I cleaned so I didn’t have to think about what I was doing. I got back to being myself after I was done. Easy-peasy.

#sons of anarchy #soa #tig trager #chibs telford #soa fanfic #fanfic #fan fiction #gemma teller #jax teller #bobby munson #happy lowman #opie winston #jessica de gouw #corrupt #clay morrow #italian mafia

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popculturedruid · 7 years

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How would you recommend finding out more about an entity when the source material is very vague, limited, and not very popular? I'm trying to figure out a pantheon based on the Great Ones from Bloodborne, but information about pretty much all of them is few and far between. Also, I have trouble meditating due to literal ADHD, do you have any ideas for how to concentrate better? Thank you so much, your blog is lovely!!

Aww, thank you so much! That means a lot!

This is such a good question. I wanted to take some time here again to really answer this one to give you a proper answer. That’s why it took me a bit to get back to you.

I understand your frustration here. It is very frustrating to look for information about your desired entity and find little to nothing. I looked up Bloodborne just to see what we were getting at, then quickly realized I was going to give myself spoilers because I probably wanted to play this game. :)

From the bit that I let myself get a look at, the Great Ones pantheon immediately reminds me of the Daedra from the Elder Scrolls games. Not in such basic terms as good and evil, but simply from the scope of multiple forms, alternate planes, and just generally screwing with people. There is a fairly large group of Tamriel PCPs on Tumblr, it might be worth a look to check into see how they structure their relationships for ideas to maybe start your own. I’m going to refer you over to @popculturepagan who has a tag on Elder Scrolls PCP. Not saying you need to go that way at all, I’m just trying to show you another pantheon that’s a bit more established that might give you some ideas to help you get yours started!

It appears the direct reference for the Great Ones is H.P. Lovecraft and his “Great Old Ones.” You have undoubtedly heard of Cthulhu. Cthulhu is just a high priest to one of them. Many folks make Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones out to be chibi, but if you read the stories, they’re actually quite terrifying. If you haven’t read the stories, and you’re still itching for more Bloodborne, the best place to go would be for the inspiration for the Great Ones: Lovecraft’s stories. He wrote many, but you can get the stories that just contain the ones with Cthulhu. I think they would also mostly include the Great Old Ones in those as well. His stories are just great in general, however. From these stories of the GOO (I got tired writing that out :P), you could probably pick up a bit more on the general characteristics of your GOs.

I would also encourage you to search through fanfiction. I have called fanfiction our weird version of Shared Personal Gnosis. If the community in general kinda feels a certain way about a character, they generally might be on to something.

For instance, everyone is probably going to say that Luke Skywalker seems like a pretty swell guy. He’s not likely to go nuts anytime soon (I would though, all alone on that planet, let’s be real). If someone writes a version of Luke that runs around murdering all the things for the lolz, people are generally going to disagree.

(That’s not to say you can’t end up contacting a different version of that entity, but that’s getting into something different, and that’s where the theory of multiverses comes into play. And how @octomantra and I have two different Eds in our heads.)

You might point out again that this is a small community still, and a character being out of character this early on is not going to be as obvious as Luke running around killing all the younglings. But I hope you would start to see a trend in how others are viewing this world as well, even if they aren’t viewing it in the exact same way. It’s still getting built.

Here’s the link to the Archive of Our Own Bloodborne Tag: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Bloodborne%20(Video%20Game)/works

Fanfiction.net:https://m.fanfiction.net/game/Bloodborne/

I also noticed there is a huge crossover community at FF.net. Not sure if that really would mean much to you, but here you are:https://m.fanfiction.net/crossovers/Bloodborne/12234/

As for your question about ADHD and meditating, I feel your pain here. I have this, and it takes a lot for me to focus. To get my brain even in the mindset I say the Jedi code about 3 times until my brain realizes we’re going to just STOP for a second. And this takes a sheer force of will to get it to stop and focus. For a moment. It’s fine if you can’t, I’m lucky if I can for about 30 seconds before my brain is on to whatever else I thought I needed to do next.

In answering your question, however, I realized that for me if I truly want to meditate and reach out to my entities I have to create a place in my head where I’m going. It can’t just be “breathe in, breathe out.” Then my brain starts going, “wait, am I doing the breathing right? Wait, is my mind wandering? Wait, I’m still the only person in this room, right?” Even though I know damn well I’m the only person in the room because I would have heard it, but my brain just thinks, “ooh, shiny!” And I’m gone.

If I want to actually talk to my people for more than 10 seconds I have to create a place in my head for me to actually be standing in. You would think it’d be more distracting, but apparently once I’m out of how distracting this world is I’m fine. The other place can’t be too detailed either though, otherwise I’m like, “hey, I got to get closer to that countertop because I don’t know what color it is EXACTLY, and if I don’t know right now, I may literally die.” Forget the fact I’m talking to someone, nope, I’m gone.

You will fail sometimes, and it will be fine. I do it frequently enough. I usually don’t go into meditation to talk to my entities, I just talk out loud. I suppose this could be a talking meditation if I’m focusing hard enough. This doesn’t always work. I have a particularly amusing memory of trying to pseudo meditate/talk to tell Colonel Mustang “happy birthday, Colonel” and “it is good to meet you” in Japanese on his birthday. I’d only been learning the language for 3 days. I had worked fairly hard to get to this point, so I was fairly proud of myself. Colonel Mustang had been grumpy all day, and I had a fairly good idea why. So I thought, “hey, let’s try to greet him in the language his original materials were printed in to see if it will cheer him up.” It did, for about 30 seconds, until my brain completely derailed because I knew one of the words wasn’t translating properly. I spent the next at least 20 minutes tracking the problem until I somewhat figured it out. By then though, the damage was done. He was back to being irritated, and I got the distinct impression he wouldn’t even look at me. At the time, I was disappointed. Now, it’s funny because I realize he was throwing a hissy fit. (The chaos in my head, right now.)

So, as silly as it sounds, make a happy place. A field in the middle of nowhere, a snowy plain, your favorite movie, a library, the actual area your characters are from, wherever. Create the starting place, but let the world build itself. That’s what I do. I don’t build it. I let it happen. It’s less stressful, and less distracting.

It sounds insanely difficult, but it’s not. We don’t let our imaginations run free anymore, but when we do, it’s beautiful.

Besides building your happy place, I also try to minimize distractions by going into a room where I won’t be disturbed by someone for at least a fair bit of time. I have to make sure the room is straightened first. It doesn’t have to be absolutely cleaned, but just tidied first or I can’t concentrate on anything other than, “did you just invite your friends over to a pig sty?” I turn off the lights. I get into comfortable clothing, which for me is just sweatpants and a hoodie. I get into a comfortable position, it doesn’t matter if it’s sitting or laying down, hell it can be standing if it’s what works for you. Just make sure you can stay in it without having to move. I like lighting a candle, because candles. I pull up my hoodie and just start zoning and talking. I focus on a place right behind my eyes, oddly enough. It actually slightly hurts, but I’m assuming it’s because I have strabismus, and I’m making my eyes go straight. I actually caution against falling asleep in this state. I have done it a couple times, and it’s like you bring things back from whatever gate you didn’t close. I have had the oddest dreams while falling asleep mid-meditation. That’s just me. Maybe you’ll find something else. :D

If and when you decide to get your practice started, whether with the Great Ones or whomever, and if you create a Tumblr, please let me know. Or even if you just create anything let me know so I can have a link for the next person who comes asking. This community only gets bigger when we reach out to each other! I am super happy to see new universes get people everyday. It’s super exciting!

Best of luck! I hope I helped a little, and please, please, please let me know if you have any more questions!

#anon ask #pc pagan #pc paganism #pop culture pagan #pop culture paganism #pop culture paganism philosophy #pagan adhd #soulbonds #multiverse

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infiniteundo · 7 years

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Software As Narrative 11/n

## What's wrong with The Rule Of Three? ### Or: structuralism and software are a bad fit. This article is part 11 of an ongoing series on **Tentacular Devops** in the *Post-Information Age (or Cthulhucene Epoch).* If you would like, you may get caught up by [reading from the beginning.](http://infiniteundo.com/post/158652390003/software-as-narrative-collected-1)

tl;dr: Just Tell me why the Rule Of Three Is Bad Already!

At work we recently (it's 2017 as I write this) held a book club where we read The Pragmatic Programmer. Wow, what a mistake.

It is long past time to retire that out-of-date manual. Software has changed in the last 18 years and so has our understanding of how software works as a medium.

The Pragmatic Programmer is a relic of structuralism

In the 2000s and late 90s it was popular to use Architecture (the design and construction of houses, skyscrapers, airports, etc.) as a functional allegory for how to build software.

In the interceding time post-modernism has found its place in armory of legitimate paradigms that may be applied to an enterprise project and along with post-modernism has come the opportunity to take a post-structural approach to software.

When The Pragmatic Programmer was written, the most important software in the Enterprise still ran on the desktop. It might do a couple socket connections, maybe consume some data through a Web form but that was it. Software was a thing that lived on someone's desktop or laptop machine. If it worked, it worked for one user.

Likewise in those days if it broke, it broke for one user. Dispatch one tech support operator to the one user, fix the one problematic instance of the software and business could tick along normally again.

This time in computing is gone, never to return.

Devops is fundamentally post-structuralist

If you want to do continuous delivery and devops, The Pragmatic Programmer won't help you at all. There's nothing in there about collaboration, scaling Web sites or how to roll out an experimental feature. Instead it's a book that assumes a software system is like a building: something to be designed on paper an then built one convenient "brick" at a time --- although through the "magic" of object oriented programming you actually get to design your own bricks.

It would be better, given the option, to design the city that the buildings are part of and not worry about the bricks. But that's for a later rant on functional programming :)

The observed reality 18 years after The Pragmatic Programmer is that, as software engineers and systems operations people, we have taken on the problem of building and managing something that is thousands of orders of magnitude more complex than an airport or a mega-city.

Dijkstra was already pointing this out in the 1980s but not many people listened, probably because it isn't fun to think about how your species has created a problem that it is not capable of solving without some serious brain evolution going on (spoiler: our brains have not appreciably evolved since we came down from the trees: what we got is what we got in that department).

Software is not like buildings, not like cars, not like college campuses

The assumption (Dijkstra notwithstanding) at the time that The Pragmatic Programmer was written was that software is intractably complex only by accident: if we are careful and apply attention to qualities like craftsmanship in our work, then we can use Object-Oriented principles to control and constrain the complexity of our systems, resulting in software that is relatively cheap to maintain and new systems that are relatively cheap to build.

THIS TURNED OUT TO BE UTTER HORSESHIT.

It's not anyone's fault. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. But today the idea that there is some kind of functional upper bound on system complexity is laughable (and if they don't laugh when you point this out, you can be sure they're trying to sell you something).

It turns out that what we know historically about "being careful" and "craftsmanship" doesn't mean fuck all when you are dealing with a medium that can potentially be "made of" more "discrete parts" in 30 minutes of interaction than there are seconds in the universe.

If the statement that a period of time can be made out of discrete parts seems like a non sequitur then you are beginning to see just how much software is not like any medium that has gone before including the building trade.

The language barely contains words to describe the level of weirdness that exists inside even a "simple" program (although as I have just said: there is no such thing as a simple computer program and the phrase is an oxymoron). This is part of why the internet has resulted in the invention of so many words. There are things on the internet --- a lot of things --- that simply have no precedent in human history prior to the late 1980s when the network began to come online.

Applying structural strategies to post-structural entities makes zero sense

Again it's not anyone's fault that books like The Pragmatic Programmer exist. But it is problematic to keep using such perspectives today. All of the "canonical" books from this period are suspect including Design Patterns and even Refactoring.

Software isn't what we thought it was 20 years ago. Software is something way weirder and way less tractable than we thought. There is no upper bound on complexity in software. None.

That Rule Of Three

So let's get back to this so-called "rule of three." A structural canard in a post-structural milieu.

Here is the current Wikipedia definition of the Rule of Three:

> Rule of three is a code refactoring rule of thumb to decide when a > replicated piece of code should be replaced by a new procedure. It > states that the code can be copied once, but that when the same code > is used three times, it should be extracted into a new procedure.

There are two primary objections I wish to raise:

3 repetitions is a completely arbitrary threshold.

The meaning of the word "repetition" is unclear and there is no way to make it clearer in this context, precisely because of the post-structural nature of code.

Three repetitions is an arbitrary numerical target.

Why is three the breakpoint for when code should be "replaced by a new procedure." Why not two repetitions? Why not four? Why not ten for that matter? There is no science at all to the choice of three as the threshold here. "Three repetitions bad" is pure folk knowledge, passed from one person to another over the years and accepted as common sense without a shred of supporting evidence.

There are enough counterintuitive and emergent "rules" to software development. We do not need to introduce entirely-made-up rules like "refactor after three repetitions."

"Copied piece of code" is a phrase so vague as to be meaningless in practice.

Of course, we can't consistently observe a rule that has to do with "repeated code" because that is a concept that has no clear definition.

By "repeated code" do we mean two subroutines that are identical in every respect? Do we mean two lines that are identical? The implications of one or the other are completely divergent.

What is the intent of the rule in such a case? The truth is that judging from all extant writing about The Rule Of Three, there is no authoritative way to decide what "repeated code" means and we are left to guess.

But it isn't clear what's meant by "repeated" even. Is "repeated" a synonym for "identical in every respect" or is there a fuzzier threshold that was meant to be applied?

For instance if I have an addOne() method and an addTen() method isn't that a sort of duplication? Should I then instead of creating addTwenty() in my codebase instead "reduce duplication" by replacing the two existing call-sites and the still-hypothetical third call site with a "generalized" add() method?

The number of semantic uncertainties just in the toy scenario above is staggering. In my 20 years as a consultant I have seen real-world attempts to perform "software maintenance" in this way create a slippery slope to bikeshedding. In the worst cases I have observed errant or misaligned "refactoring projects" that were so ill-defined (based on the previously-mentioned insufficient definition of "repeated code") that the software product began to exhibit production service degradations as a result.

There is enough guesswork in software. We do not need to introduce more.

#devops #pragmatic programmer #dave thomas #programming #hacking #design #code #information architecture #information design #refactoring #duplicated code #code duplication #static analysis

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