#recalcitrant inbox answers

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

My go tos are

- go offline

- daily mass

- no caffeine

Confession is also an oldie but a goodie!

But yeah the televised daily mass out of Canada is on youtube and is a darn good time. Rosary? Centering prayer? Almsgiving opportunities near you?

Good luck and, as Fr. Vinny would say, have an excelLent :p

I am choosing to believe that you are merely telling me to use Microsoft Excel a lot in Lent, I do not see the pun, it cannot hurt me

Confession!!! I always forget about going to Confession because almost every church within a half hour of me does not believe in having Confession at a time other than Saturday afternoon. Lent would be a good time to actually drive out to the cathedral and do that. Or go to one of those weird services with 800 priests. Thank you!

And also ooh yeah, never thought about doing a televised daily Mass. Dragging a 5 year old to daily Mass regularly would be terrible for everybody, but it's something I can just watch on my own, that's an actual possibility.

I tried to give up caffeine cold turkey one year. As it turns out, this is more of a sacrifice for other people than a sacrifice for me. My manager at the time pulled me into his office two days into Lent and said, "Robyn, I don't know what you've changed, but I need you to stop it right now before I have to fire you."

[clairelsonao3]

Oh, by the way, please send me STS asks if you're able, want to, and care to. I just got a few in my inbox and it instantly lifted my shitty writing mood (thank you, lovelies). Forcing my recalcitrant self to sit down and answer them whether I like it or not will probably improve it even more. And you know I'll reciprocate, probably later this week with some more of my patented "just because" asks. Thank you. 💕

[praximeter]

I am absolutely floored by how well-written, well-researched, and flat-out engaging your works are! I did have a question-- and this can be either for your maskfic or The Night War-- but, in your headcannon, how much of those ~70 years did Bucky spend awake? I've seen writers go both ways, either that he was kept in cryo as much as possible b/c otherwise he was unstable, but also that he would need to spend a decent amount of time out to keep on top of modern weaponry & train.

😍😍😍 Nonnie, thank you! WOW! What a lovely comment to see in my inbox. You made my day! And this is a great question. 

I headcanon that American HYDRA didn’t figure out cryo until the early 50s, and relocated the project to Russian HYDRA in 1956. So, Bucky was mostly awake (tragically) from 1945 to about 1953, per this excerpt from one of my WIPs:

Dr. Zola also experimented with cryopreservation techniques on the defendant during this time, successfully achieving cryostasis and resuscitation four times from 1949 to 1953.

In 1957, Russian HYDRA/KGB decided to thaw out their acquisition, and with the loose cooperation of their American counterparts, begin the process of transforming him from a recalcitrant, brain-damaged sniper to what we might recognize as the Winter Soldier. Personally, I headcanon that American HYDRA weren’t especially creative about thinking outside the sniper box when it came to Bucky – if all they need him for was that skill, then they wouldn’t have needed to train him (or potentially re-train, depending on the level of brain damage sustained) in other skills.

The Russians, though, they’re creative.  

Additional records suggest that following this relocation, the defendant was not “activated,” or resuscitated from cryostasis, until 1957. At that time, the Subject Zero program was re-designated the Winter Soldier program, though the first recorded use of the “Winter Soldier” codename appears in Russian documents from 1947. It was during this period beginning in 1957 that the KGB and HYDRA program managers expended substantial resources in martial skills, spycraft, and language training for the defendant, using a mix of classical conditioning techniques, drugs, and hypnosis to “install” a range of skills and abilities. The defendant has very limited memories of this period, and often cannot remember the skills he possesses, such as expertise in a specific martial art or language, until he is called on to use it (See: Source Amnesia).

I also headcanon that it’s the Russians who installed the trigger word system, and did not include it in the package when they sold off the program back to American HYDRA in the early 90s, as a little fuck-you to their rivals/counterparts. That’s why we don’t see the triggers in CA:TWS, and why they’re such a closely guarded secret (Zemo hunting down Karpov). It’s also why, in my view, American HYDRA had to “brute force” their way into controlling Bucky – “Electroconvulsive Recalibration Therapy,” or “ERT” – and keep him activated only for short periods (“he’s been out of cryo too long”).

So, my working model is that American HYDRA had pretty strict operating methods derived from (awful) trial-and-error:

TC: Electroconvulsive recalibration—you mean the chair.

LM: Right.

TC: And what would you say James Barnes’s state of mind was, following the immediate application of electroconvulsive therapy and reconditioning?

LM: His state of mind?

TC: Yes. Was he of sound mind?

LM: Do you not—the whole point of ERT is to wipe him, Mr. Cleary. That’s the whole point. After that— [Laughs] there isn’t really a mind left to even be sound or unsound.

TC: So to be clear, when you say “erratic” behavior, you mean behavior such as remembering his name, or perhaps the fact that he was a captive?

LM: Well, no, he never remembered his name. At least not while I was involved in the project. But yes, violent outbursts, self-harm, disobedience, that kind of thing. 

TC: So in order to avoid those behaviors, the protocol was to wipe him?

LM: First cryostasis and then ERT, yes. He’s really only stable for, say, 240 hours or so—well, longer if he’s on foreign soil, but with those last missions—I warned them, I did, I told them it was a bad idea to assign him Captain America, but they didn’t listen to me. But yes, 240 hours maximum.

TC: That’s not very long.

LM: No. With the Zola Formula, the subject is able to repair damage to his brain that would be catastrophic in non-enhanced persons. That’s why I often had to accompany the support staff on missions lasting any longer than 10 days or so, in case a field wipe was required.

So, my answer is: he was awake for about 8 straight years following his capture; in short bursts while under the control of American HYDRA post-1992 (for a rough total of 300-440 total days awake); and for an indeterminate amount of time from 1957 to 1992; but most particularly from 1970 (when American HYDRA formally sold their majority interest in the program to the Russian faction) until 1992. Very few records exist of that 22-year period, though perhaps if that Siberian base is discovered any time soon, that mystery will be solved. :)

[all excerpts from the WIP “Forensic Mental Health Assessment,” which is actually complete but I’m just dragging my heels on editing/revising it for publication…]

[hyperbolicpurple]

Hi! Are you by any chance planning to write more of your Jonsa soulmates AU? The first two chapters are more than enough on their own, but I certainly wouldn't say no to more. :)

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE, anon. (To answer your question, this is all extremely unplanned! But I welcome requests and prompts for it. :D)

(I have several asks in my inbox about continuing this fic, I will get to all of them with snippets soon!)

Part 1, Part 2

Mercifully, Jon is almost immediately sent out on a call, a report of a midnight intruder made by a neighbor. Sinking into the routine of work pushes everything else out of his mind. There’s nothing like work for clearing his head, focusing on what matters. By the time he gets back to the station at 2:30, Jon has convinced himself that everything is back to normal. Status quo restored.

Sam is waiting for him when he gets back, with an accusing glare to boot. He pulls Jon into an interrogation room. The same one.

Jon manages to return the glare for all of three seconds before snapping. “What is it?”

“I spoke with your … visitor.”

Jon hears the words unspoken. Cousin. Soulmate. Whatever the fuck that means.

“So?”

“You weren’t very kind to her.”

Sam has a way of understating things while at the same time giving them a painful heft. From others, “not very kind” is hardly even a criticism. From the lips of Pyp or Grenn or Captain Mormont, it could even be a compliment admiring someone’s determination to find the truth in the face of a recalcitrant suspect.

From Sam, it’s absolute condemnation.

Funny. Jon’s eyes are burning. Lack of sleep, no doubt. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Sam is unfazed. “Maybe it’s not. But it turned out she had something to say.”

You can’t be my … This is a mistake. There’s been a horrible mix-up.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Jon says sourly. Something to say.

Sam taps his pad, which Jon hadn’t noticed when he first came in. “She has reason to think the Boltons might be involved in the disappearance of her friend.”

Just a misunderstanding, then. Sam is sharp, easily the smartest person Jon knows, but he has a soft heart. He rushes to reassure his partner. “She doesn’t have any evidence.”

Sam says, almost gently, “Nothing concrete. But circumstantial, yes.”

Something freezes over in Jon. “She didn’t say anything about that to me.”

“Did you let her?”

Those four words make Jon’s jaw clench powerfully. He wants to speak. He wants to leap to his own defense. The thoughts fly through his mind. I heard her out. I asked her if she had evidence. She said she didn’t. I did my due diligence. But he can’t unglue his jaw. If he does, something will …

Sam keeps speaking, and the hardest thing Jon has ever done in his life is listen.

Part 4

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

that anti-phone post ends with some clear queerphobic dogwhistling btw

I also did not love that...especially the scare quotes around sexuality - that was weird and uncalled for, even in the context of the argument! In the olden days of tumblr, I would have done some selective editing here for sure.

When I read it it seemed to me that these were being presented as the talking points of somebody with a political agenda who is wrong, who is blaming problems caused by the internet in general on people freely talking about their sexuality etc. But maybe I'm just reading a negative lens into it because of the type of people I'm usually having annoying conversations with - this type of scare quoting/rage-baiting so obviously reads as repulsive to me that I assume it's supposed to be a straw man we all agree is not the real problem.

This blog is not here for the queerphobia blame game, so thank you for calling out that I might have gotten my read on this post wrong. I am here to lament the way phones have destroyed my attention span and the way I view relationality, NOT the fact that the internet allowed me to get out of the bubble I grew up in long enough to realize I was bisexual at the age of 19.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Give up self-imposed restrictions and limitations #hedonisticlent

Anon, if you had not included the hashtag hedonistic Lent, which fully gave you away as a Lent hater, I would have said WHO ARE YOU, YOU CLEARLY KNOW ME FROM REAL LIFE

Because my whole life is self-imposed restrictions and limitations. [Robyn, you say: have you ever been diagnosed with OCD? I reply confidently: of course not, the obsessive systems I have created are too good to result in any impairment of my life whatsoever. (So far my therapist has accepted this as an answer.)] This is why Lent is particularly hard for me, because my choices boil down to three things when it comes to the typical Lent suggestions:

I do that already

I wanna do that but it would punish the people around me

I think this would make me worse as a person

I think it would in fact be really funny to give up one of my systems for Lent. Both because you seem to have suggested that in the spirit of Lent-hating, but also because it would genuinely be a sacrifice. Stop letting the average temperature of the day dictate what type of clothes I'm allowed to wear? Stop meticulously dividing things out by the gram? Stop watching my TV shows not in the order of when they air, or how much I want to see them, but instead a secret third thing?? Obviously I cannot give up every system because my life would descend into chaos but one???? It would be TERRIBLE but nobody else would notice.

Thank you, Lent-hating anon. This was actually very useful.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

You saw my vision about Paradise Towers as a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta and therefore I will never leave you

(Unless you ask me to)

I will never ask you to! And some day I will go back to Doctor Who again...maybe even without whining about how fast-paced it has gotten.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

what is the magical pumpkin drink

you really Can’t Order It from a McDonald’s unless you personally know a McDonald’s employee SUPER well…preferably a manager…because most of them will not be here for this nonsense. In fact, this drink works best if you are a manager and can just order and make your own drinks without bothering another human person. So this works best as a secret employee drink specifically because there is zero precedent for this drink in the register and also the brains of people at McDonald’s who don’t usually use more than one machine to make a single drink. (There’s a reason this drink was created during an overnight shift.) It’s a pain in the butt to make. But if you somehow find yourself at McDonald’s during an off hour, and you are like married to a manager or an Accomplished Employee owes you a life debt… 

 Take one small size vanilla milkshake (without whipped cream/cherry) and dump it into the pitcher for the frappe machine.* Add four pumps of pumpkin syrup to the pitcher. This syrup is only available seasonally. None of the other seasonal syrups make a good frappe. (NEVER put the chocolate mint syrup in the frappe pitcher. Mint is an allergen and also it transfers taste SUPER easily. Pumpkin syrup is basically just fall scented sugar.)Put the pitcher into the frappe machine and add crushed ice to it (there’s a button for this) and then blend it manually (there’s also a button for this). These buttons are probably not common knowledge. Ideally the amount of ice you blend in should make it frappe consistency, but you’re going to have to eyeball it.Drizzle caramel syrup (for the tops of frappes) inside a large frappe cup. (The small shake + ice makes a large drink. Never use a larger milkshake size.)  Pour in the pitcher contents, optionally top with whipped cream and more caramel.

How we used to charge for this was you’d get charged for a small milkshake, and then two charges for extra topping (one for the caramel inside the cup, one for the pumpkin syrup). But when I moved stores to PA where Everyone At McDonald’s Is Bad, they charged you like six times for extra syrup and only gave you a small cup’s worth of the frappe and threw out the rest? So like…again…you basically already have to be in a position of power at McDonald’s to get this the way you want it. Which is why I as manager was in a great position to create a pumpkin sugar drink cult but ever since I have not been able to order one and it is sad. (Almost as sad as the fact that I haven’t had a holiday pie in like six years. Guys. I need them.) 

 *First ask yourself, do I trust this McDonald’s with my life? Do they look like they clean things? The amount of mold that can build up in a McDonald’s frappe machine is insane. The machine really requires daily cleaning, so if you see visible grossness in only moderately-hard-to-reach places in the store that’s clearly been there for multiple days, I’d honestly not touch their frappe machine with a ten foot pole. Again, we were the overnight crew: it was our JOB to clean the machine. We knew we could trust it.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

pls tell me more about ur ghost tours.....

So!  My pregnancy rendered keeping my old job pretty much impossible (I was basically the principal of a small Catholic after-school program, I was the only paid employee, I was constantly under stress and required to do things like Walk and Lift Things and Run Events) so I quit that in favor of lots of sitting on the couch feeling dizzy while occasionally throwing up.  I was looking for temp work for my second trimester when I saw a posting for a temp job leading ghost tours.  This was immediately cooler than all the other jobs, and also required significantly fewer hours and absolutely no heavy lifting, and all the walking taking places during cold months when I’m less likely to overheat.

Now, I don’t really believe in ghosts.  I definitely believe in demons, but I don’t think any of the local ghost stories (of which there are many) can be attributed to demonic activity.  Still, I really enjoy the romantic idea of a ghost story - we’ve all felt that memories of the past can linger in a historically-charged place, and we all instinctively feel that some lives feel more unfinished than others after death.  I also love history, and a lot of the tales from my local area date back to Revolutionary War era times.  

Also I get to wear a costume (read: a costume provided by me, aka probably one million dresses and skirts layered over each other with a vaguely spooky or colonial aesthetic) and carry a lantern around a cemetery at night while having blue hair and looking super pregnant, so that’s just very enjoyable.  Most of the people on the tours look at me like I’m super cool and quirky, while all my coworkers are clearly disappointed in the fact that I’m basically the least interesting person in the whole bunch.  

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Hey!! I added 3% to my Netflix list. Any other recommendations for good foreign language shows?

While not as overwhelmingly The Best Show I Have Ever Seen, I have also SUPER enjoyed what I have seen of

Las Chicas del Cable (Cable Girls) - Spanish, period drama, features a bunch of super strong actresses and actors, usually involves a web of lies and a lot of crazy twists, reminds me a lot of the show Pan Am in tone (although I feel like I’m the only person who remembers that show)

El Barco - Spanish, completely off the walls unbelievable survival drama on a boat where every episode will have you asking WTF is going to happen to them next.  Really shines because of the super large cast of characters, most of whom you will love in some way (some of whom you will love to hate).  Also, it literally has the National Treasure soundtrack in it.

The Rain - Danish (Season 2 is still on my queue), survival drama that got me more on the hard-hitting plot than the acting performances.

My Runway - Korean, incredibly goofy body-switching show.  Very short, but stellar acting from the two mains which makes a ridiculous concept VERY watchable.

Charite - German, period drama that takes place in a hospital.  

I’m sure there were a couple more, but I switched Netflix accounts after marriage and don’t have my old account’s history to rely on anymore.  I also watched the original Spanish run of Gran Hotel, which I enjoyed but not in a super way because there was just...so much of it.  The story was compelling, but not so much that I didn’t feel like I needed constant breaks from bingewatching it because it just went on forEVER.  But with an English adaptation coming out soon (if it hasn’t already) you could watch it and then snobbishly tell everyone how the original was far better.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

You reblogged a pic recently tagged nature and flowers but it’s like a person in a mask and I was wondering what that’s all about

Can anybody verify for me that they have also seen this, with the link? I checked back through my nature tag for mistakes, but can't seem to find this post, so I'm assuming it's a misunderstanding. Thanks!

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

hey so about your "This is not healthy" thing you tagged, with the bee movie thing. comfort stimming is a thing for children, especially young ones. EVERY kid who has access to movies has that one they just Love To Death and will actually wear out the VHS / disc for. For me it was the lion king 2! Sometimes just having it on in the background is what they want, not just watching it with rapt attention. And I still play it in the background during bad insomnia nights! This is not uncommon or new.

Hey anon,

So I have yet to become the mother to a Living Earth Baby, but for a while there I thought I was about to, so I started doing some research on how screen time affects childhood development.  The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization are in agreement that skepticism about how much time children want to watch screens without adult intervention is warranted, and screen time should be avoided as much as possible during infancy, before processing abilities and self-regulation have at least started trying to form.  I know that as children age past 2, these guidelines go from “no screen time” to “limited screen time”, and toddlers definitely have that favorite movie syndrome you’re talking about – but by that time they are able to process better, so watching the movie over and over is helping their comprehension skills, whereas an infant is more likely to replace real-world stimuli with artificial ones since they can’t form a connection between the screen images and the real-world counterparts…and we all know that media moves a lot faster than much of mundane regular life.  The child in said post was ten months old at the time its mother came forward, and she said he watches the Bee Movie “from the moment he wakes up until he goes to sleep at night”.  [https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/woman-explains-streamed-bee-movie-357-times-year-article-1.3698602]  There’s a difference between a two (or three, or five, or seven) year old watching their favorite movie every single day, and an infant who has never learned any way of self-soothing because his whole life is the Bee Movie (not even a great movie).  I would guess that what you are referencing is probably the former – someone with an independent ability to communicate their preferences repeatedly communicating that they prefer one (1) movie, rather than a parent repeatedly making the decision to turn on that bee movie one more time because their infant is crying.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Bruh post a selfie. We gotta know if the tsa agent was right

Alas, I refrain from posting selfies and identifying information on here in order to continue to lead my double life where I am a principal for Catholic youths by trade but really an underground memelord with one (1) famous Tumblr post.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

goddddd i'm so jealous that you got to see hadestown. i've been in love with that musical since i first heard about it in my high school latin 1 class, i can't even IMAGINE what it's like live. this is the first time i've ever wished i lived in or near nyc lol

I’m sorry to hear that this show is off-limits to you.  I was thrilled in this instance that I’m married to the kind of person who is willing to do crazy parking/train/subway hijinks for hours upon hours so that I can go see a show I’ve been low-key stalking for the past two years.  My husband went to school near NYC, but even that didn’t save us from a low-key meltdown after we couldn’t find a bathroom for two hours and repeatedly got thrown off by construction.  But honestly?  This show was 100% worth it.  If you have a way of possibly moving mountains to see it…do it.

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Hey.  Hey.  What is this experience of liking different things over the passage of time?  I don’t know what that is.  No matter how far back in my archive you are, you’re probably looking at something I would still find good / funny / interesting today.  I’m in my late 20s and I’m very stuck in my ways.  Never apologize for finding something you think I’d like and showing it to me...that’s a super nice thing to do and very thoughtful and I don’t tend to yell at people about that kind of stuff.  

Also my relationship to renfaires is...at times more like a relationship than it should be, so that in general is always going to get me.  I went to my first renfaire at the age of like 12 and was obsessed with it (I have the journal entry to prove it), and then never got to go to renfaire again until post-college (because, money), at which point I was able to begin attending in costume and had taken improv classes and thus felt much better equipped.  So when a boyfriend I’d particularly resigned myself to spending my life with (idk why I’m like this, guys) broke up with me, my rebound was not a Real Human Man (that takes scheming and time), it was the renaissance faire.  Keep in mind the renaissance faire is like forty-five minutes from my house.  I had hand-sewn a costume over the pre-faire season (because my one roommate and I were obsessively watching degrassi while sewing).  I bought a season ticket.  I went once a weekend for months.  I knew all the characters’ names.  I stalked all the actors on Facebook (This Isn’t My Fault The Renfaire Tagged Them In Pictures) so I could figure out which ones were dating in real life.  At one point the cast gave me a character name.  The people at the food stalls thought I worked there and kept trying to give me free food.  It was...a very great and successful rebound.  So all renfaire music and costumes and hairdos and such remind me of this great adventure that I had for a few months which helped me get through what otherwise could have felt like a lonely time.  

Thank you for the songs!  Space Hero in particular was great.  

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

Okay I'm gonna need to see a picture of you after reading that airline post

Many apologies, the more popular that post gets, the more important it is that I keep the 200+ students I am the principal of from finding out my secret internet identity where I say swear words and occasionally talk about them.