#i'm going to get my first fide rating :')

[seat-safety-switch]

All around you, businesses are suffering because they neglected the cybers. That's right. Cybersecurity is more important than ever, because Russians will send you an email attachment that you open, and then your whole network gets all fucked up. And the experts are run off their feet trying to clean all this mess up. In fact, they're so busy, that I decided to step into the breach and help them out a little.

First, some background: yes, before I went "freelance" by way of living a cash-heavy, odd-jobs, hand-to-mouth, criminal-record squatter lifestyle, I too had a regular office job. Perhaps you have one like it. Let me give you some keywords and you let me know if they trigger any deep-seated trauma: Microsoft Excel. Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft Project. Now that we've established our mutual bona fides, it's time for your employer to become my employer: by hiring me to clean up the next time that Bob Dipshit, CFO, decides he's going to double-click the wrong icon and hoses the entire Eastern Seaboard.

Do I have expertise in this kind of thing? No. Will I get your files back intact? Probably not. Will anyone else get your files back? About the same chance, if I'm honest. At least this way, we both – that's right, we're partners now – get to rack up some billable hours while we "study the problem" and "look for vulnerabilities" in the meantime. And you never know. Maybe once we send a photo of the car I used to get here, the Russians will realize you don't actually have any money and turn the whole thing off. Rust scares them, you see. Their cars are all made out of exotic compressed resins that goats occasionally eat if you park in the wrong place.

So the next time your office gets all screwed up, don't waste time calling the pros. Waste time calling a complete amateur, and together we can loot the company of a bunch of money before they resign themselves to having to restore from a backup. My rates are entirely reasonable, unless you're the one paying them.

[nishnormp]

thinking way too hard about things that probably do not need this much thought

In lieu of tfc merc brainrot, I have decided to do some historical research and character workshopping to shape out the details of everything needed in ficwriting. I have nothing else to post (my art is not going well) so I might as well scream about this

P1: TF2 alternate history bullshit

Abraham Lincoln inventing rocket jumping before the existence of stairs, the entire thing with Australium, so on. Despite TFC having modern kevlar (as opposed to looney toons weapons, but a bit about that later) and a more serious/gritty tone, the setting is still within the TF2 universe; which means having a weird fusion of irl history and vaguely reasonable fantasy absurdities.

To clarify, I am not a bona fide history nut who knows absolutely everything (ffs my own country's history doesn't even play much in western incidents). I've just been doing research thru online articles, videos, and talking to other ppl who know more than me, so my brain can lack a bit for certain things; do correct me if I get anything wrong.

By the 1850s (estimation) Australia became a tech giant due to discovering Australium, making insane progress in basically every field (and also making their population very jacked). Newfound inventions also require raw resources, and this page confirms that australians pick their leader mostly based on pure strength, which begs the question; are they still connected to Britain? Would there still be a benefit for them to be linked to Britian the way they are?

There are many cases where nations plunder other nations just for natural resources; Britian is one particularly infamous force with many colonies, which makes me wonder if Australia ever resorted to snatching them just to afford all the material components that their tech requires. Australia was part of the British Empire up until 1901 irl (not too far from 1890), but the question about resources and sovereignty(even if symbolic) still remain (Britain likely wouldn't like a territory growing at terrifying and eventually unmanageable rates, and at that rate I doubt Australia would settle for middling trade margins)

(Well, apparently Saxton owns England. But that was when he discovered the internet)

There's also the ensemble of first gen mercs. RED and BLU recruit progressively less important mercs as time goes on, starting from important historical/media figures, to modern militant professional-lookin dudes, and finally to the current crop of crackheaded TF2 mercs we know and love. The Original mercs I mostly want to focus on are Abraham Lincoln and John Henry.

I'm not exactly sure if John Henry is even a real person, but he was a symbol for labor movements and the civil rights movement; the fact that he IS a real person in TF2 lore is p vital methinks, especially since him and Lincoln seem to be on the same team. Mercs are paid a lot, even the "bottom of the barrel" tf2 ones: scout has his merch collection to show for it, medic has his exotic animal parts, heavy has his gun ammo (and also casually gave a child 7k dollars), etc; could John Henry have spearheaded civil rights movements not just in America but also other territories (like africa) with the bread and merits he got for the job? Does he have a legacy with rouge merc groups (armed unions?) that fight against imperialism? Maybe even effect/radicalize Lincoln about some things??? Unethical business practices still persist even in Saxton's era (hell, he's an example) but maybe the (hypothetical) challenges to Britain's grasp on its colonies and evolution of munitions would give the people an edge.

I have no idea how a drastically colony-less Britain would affect the timeline of WW1 (esp in less popular side-wars like in South Africa where Britain was very much involved, which may be problematic since my interp of cmedic is FROM there but anyways) (btw they only won that bc they out-attritioned Germany, but by that point maybe the dutch or the americans would take over), but surprisingly enough WW2 ends at around the same time it does irl, despite my initial thought that a roided-out Allied Australia would be more than capable of turning the Axis Powers into a skidmark. The likely explanation for that is that the finer details were just not important for the tf2 comics that took place AFTER (fair enough), but as someone planning to write the 1930s mercs . Pain . My working explanation is that seemingly unaligned private contractors can get ahold of weapons easier than Certain governments, which makes mercs more popular than national soldiers for carrying out certain missions (plausible employer deniability baybeeee).

P2: Conflicting class meta - CHeavy edition

Onto something less heavy, another part of ficwriting is figuring out how characters are...characterized. The TFC mercs dont have much canonical info (I've already turned two of them into straight up ocs because I am NOT going to write p3dos from start to finish of a longfic) so I settle for looking at other things, like gameplay and ingame roles.

The first I focused on was cheavy, the leader of the group. Grouchy, but a surprisingly tolerant team player.

This IS reused from a previous post (im lazy) but the first bullet basically says "otherwise, offensive heavies are frequently looked down on and the power of the other team's defense will have you dead in no time". Gameplay-wise, CHeavy is considered the simplest class and the easiest one to master; most tfc gamers think its a common noob pick. His total health is pretty good, he occupies a big space so he can block narrow paths, and the way he attacks is simple; but he's slow even when b-hopping (grenades cant boost him either) so he can be outrun/picked apart by other classes, which really shows in tfc's most popular game format: capture the flag.

I've seen about a handful video of tfc gameplay that WASN'T ctf (or the slightly diff gamemode with a defense system), and even if the 4th bullet point is right, those two classes are usually doing more important things during ctf. My main point is that despite being the leader, he isn't the type of class to lead the charge.

The most reasonable thing I can think of is that he's just . Really good at strategy and can keep track of his team while reliably holding down a position. That, and his superior bulk makes him shine more outside of the gravel pits. Whatever it is, it does make more sense to me now that I revisit the comic panels where he is VERY spiteful that his teammates got killed (rather than calling them weak, they fr matter to him bc otherwise, he isn't getting shit done)

(Ik the reason hes the boss is bc big scary dude and karmic ass-handing via other heavy who actually respects his doctor but shh the fic demands reasons)

P3: Conflicting class meta - Cmedic edition

The contradiction I can immediately clock is the fact that cmedic never gets mentioned despite his omnipresence in his original game. Most hc's I've seen interpret him as the exact opposite of the current medic, which is a dedicated doctor who also happens to be a sweetheart (with very rare exceptions), but may I propose the theory that all mannco medic mercs are bastards? I'm 99% sure that the original medic was sigmund freud. TF2 medic is just a menace. Post WW1 most moral and noble medics would bust their asses at hospitals rather than sign up to a contract tying them down to just healing 8 other people and killing other people over and over, but that's just my hc (we're all making shit up, might as well have fun with it).

The most common citing for cmed's hidden menace energy is his virus weaponry, but I think his ingame role also shows it pretty well. Practically taking the scout's niche and making it less punishing by having straight upgrades of his two weapons, giving healing utility AND also being able to sniff out spies like a cscout (he can't diffuse bombs or trail caltrops, but he's already powerful as is). Imagine being cscout, having to compete for flag capture points with this guy who practically has everything you have but better (instead of leaving behind super visible spikes he has a college degree). This isn't even like the modern sniper vs spy debate where it can still be debated that spy has a unique niche with his mindgames, cmedic just straight up took copied his homework, 98% percent matching on the plagiarism bot.

Cscout and cmedic beef is very likely, but if cscout is a literal god at what he does then there won't be much issue, since the best cscout is ultimately better at flagrunning than cmedic. Its likely that cscout is simply human tho, so that's some drama that can happen.

Funnily enough the tfc class that gets the most weight and hate on its shoulders is sniper. This is because servers have a limit on how many snipers can join, and if a shitty sniper took up the slots, the rest of the team would be pretty pissed. Meanwhile, a competent sniper is the bane of every player's existence; a missed shot can still slow someone down until a medic cures them.

P4: cmedic backstory building hell - barely organized nonsense

Last one I swear. My drawings of cmedic explicitly portray him as a person of color- more specifically a cape malay, from the cape territory in South Africa; he even curses in malay in one of the posts. Ig I wanted the cast to be more diverse, but it did make his backstory somewhat harder to write.

Mann co is situated in New Mexico, far from SA. How and why did he get all the way there? With the fanon worldbuilding I set, what is stopping him from simply joining a nearer merc group? Probably heard of it through the grapevine, and travelled for fat stacks; wouldn't be uncommon for doctors (or mercs) to be highly motivated due to money. I wondered of what would set him apart from all the other hypothetical medic applicants that probably graduated from upstanding colleges like harvard, then I recall all those common hcs.

1)Most applicants assumed that the job would consist of primarily healing, without considering how bloodthirsty their company would be, and/or 2)the BLU team has been getting genuine medics and chewing them up like gum (and spitting them out utterly mangled, I suppose). There's also the possibility that some margin of these medics actually had some weapon training, but at that point a lot of time has been spent (also some conflicting motives there, I can't imagine the perks that a deadly merc job has over a hospital job unless the guy got a kick out of it).

My next idea was to make him a ww1 vet on the side of the British (australian? american?) colonies of SA, having joined midway after finishing his education. However this would clock his age during the current 1970s timeline to be around 81, pretty old; most of the tfc mercs would be 70s max around that time. Cmedic is visually the youngest of the mercs too, you can compare his smooth eyes to the more sunken cspy's eyes and there is a notable difference. This is really just an issue of me being on the fence about fully oc-fying him (a friend of him suggested making him a vampire, I am almost tempted to make it so).

In the case that particular hurdle is overcome, there are more details I have to iron out. I figured that his motives either come from wanting to financially help out his family after the war's sheer devastation, or just . a general resentment for the way things unfolded, and he swapped to merc work in the states to get properly paid for his work and (attempt to) fill the void in his soul. Maybe a mix of the two. An outlier in his community for being a godless man and having very material and tangible masters (science and money), he abandons the lofty ideals of nationalism and sides himself with the highest bidder in the private market. Also developed an insane immune system (trenches and exposure are no joke).

(Certain classes have shared characteristics across gens, like the demos' deranged smiles and engies' wholesome vibes. With sigmund freud, tf2 medic as the archetypal mad doctor, and tfc medic as the archetypal capitalist doctor, there are now three gens of doctors with dubious machinations.)

He'd probably be a great medic, respecting merc code and all (funfact tf2 medic mentions tfc demo by name, implying that he knows his real name and putting a dent in my theory that being on a first-name basis is a big deal actually , my countertheory to that is that grey mann gave him the team's files and tf2 medic wants to spite them). Cmedic also reverse-engineered the medkit and made a new version for non-gravel war missions, since the usual has several hard drugs (heals to full instantly and gives adrenaline boost, sounds sus especially if you read jarate's side effects) since he ended up somewhat caring about his pack of rabid animals

[tigirl-and-co]

20. A boss you think is really cool

Hmmm... that's an interesting one! I'm gonna answer with a few different bosses, bc 'cool' could mean a lot of different things

Cool design + concept: Blizzeta from Twilight Princess (her 2nd form also has what's probably my 2nd fave boss theme of all time)! I also like the in-story context for her boss battle so much! (spoilers for Twilight Princess) We know already that the mirror shards are a corrupting force, and earlier we see that the Goron Chief was corrupted by the Fused Shadows. But here we see, via freaky ass cutscene, a character we liked get corrupted in front of us- it's no longer a generic 'beat the bad guy' boss fight, it's a 'saving the innocent' battle with personal stakes! and the cutscene that initiates her battle? Iconic. Everyone in the fandom knew NOT. TAKE. MIRROR. I also have an attachment to her for very personal reasons haha. But yeah her design fucks hard, I wish the combat was as interesting as the rest of her schtick.

Cool (I admire them): Cynthia from pokemon gen 4 are u kidding me I wanted to be her SO BAD as a kid. She wiped the floor with me so many times. I made a sprite edit using her as a base when I was like 12 and used it for an avatar. If I can remember the name of my old forums I'll post it.

Cool as in 'has stuck with me': Honestly a lot of the OG Luigi's Mansion ghosts are cool bc they're like... just people, and it's real wild that the first boss of this nintendo game is somebody's dead mom. But Bogmire stands out for being kind of surprise creepy. I think about it a lot. What's its deal. Yeah it's the personification of the house's misery or whatever, but what does that MEAN. I was like 5 or 6, playing this game, and I go to a hidden graveyard and knock on a big cool gravestone and initiate this battle. For little me, it was the right mix of creepy but engaging. I was nervous but not terrified. I would buy a Bogmire plushie.

Cool as in 'I look forward to it when I play the game': The darknut minibosses from both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Yeah the Wind Waker one isn't that tough now that I have a big grown up brain, but it's still neat, and WW Darknuts are my literal all time favourite enemies to fight in any game ever. I never pass up the chance.

The Twilight Princess one, though? Holy shit. I replayed the game like 2 years ago, and that bitch STILL kinda freaked me out! YEAH you can cheese him with the bomb arrows if ur a little bitch, but if you do a genuine bona fide sword fight? That shit's fun as hell. There's this unnameable dread when you first enter that room. You can feel in your BONES that that suit of armor is going to come to life and whoop your ass.

Cool as in most badass/dramatic: oh yeah it's gotta be the Wind Waker final battle. Everything about it RULES. (SPOILERS) You're having a desperate sword fight for your life, a 10 year old kid who left home a month ago vs an ancient warlock who was so powerful the gods themselves had to seal him away.

He won, btw. Like Ganondorf literally wins in WW. It takes KoRL stepping in to DROWN BOTH HIMSELF AND GANONDORF to prevent Ganondorf from getting his wish. So you're trapped in a room, water pouring in on all sides, against a man who... doesn't even hate you. He's just doing what must be done. He could have killed Zelda, but he doesn't. He puts his sword away and backhands her instead of running her through. He's 100% just playing out his destiny. You aren't the one who defeated him the first time, you're just some kid who was dragged into this by a ghost.

And when you kill him BY STABBING YOUR GODDAMN SWORD INTO HIS HEAD, he laughs quietly before delivering one of the most iconic lines in Zelda history. Like that whole battle, from opening cutscene to the final, is so intense. So fucking intense. I'm convinced they couldn't have gotten away with half the shit they do if the game wasn't so cutesy. Easy Teen rating.

Cool as in Best: WW Molgera is 10/10. The fight itself is fun and satisfying! Molgera has a KICK ASS design! It's a fantastic and mood-setting opening cutscene! The sound design on the boss is freaky in all the right ways! It's a UNIQUE boss battle! She's got the greatest boss battle theme in the whole goddamn series and I'll DIE on this hill! She was so scary I cried while watching my dad play when I was little, and once I got to her battle on my own I not only remembered her, it took me two days to work up the courage to face her, and I felt like an absolute fucking badass once I did! In that moment, I fell well and truly in love with video games. I was Link, a child facing down an ancient wyrm, terrified but pressing on.

Also, in the original GCN version of the game, the hitbox on her tongue doesn't go away when she starts flying, so you can hookshot it and force her back into the sand.

Thank you for the ask, doubly so if you actually read all of this haha <333

[ssfghfrrggf]

Yes! Super Over Psycho Analyzing Detective time please! I'm interested!

Okay. So this is gonna be a long ass post so i'm putting it under a read more, but here goes my thoughts on the black ribbon speculation:

First here's the picture in question:

More in, the badge is the focus here, specifically the little black line at the bottom of the badge:

There are two working theories here: it's a shadow OR it's a black memorial band.

My first thought upon seeing it was that it's a shadow and everyone on twitter was crazy. Furthermore i thought the black line is in the wrong place to be a memorial band. Because memorial bands usually cover the middle emblem of the badge like so:

I also zoomed in a ton on the picture and noticed that there was a little silver line at the edge of the black line which would mean the black streak in question wasn't wrapping all the way around the star. See?

I was pretty sertain of all my evidence until i got on google images to find pictures of badges with menorial bands so i could make a post like this disproving the seemingly outlandish theory that this a black ribbon. But in my search for pictures of what black ribbons actually look like on star shaped badges (like the 3rd picture), i discovered this a little while after i found that 3rd pic:

And all of my theories of it not being a black ribbon kinda went down the drain. Which SUCKS because i was really hoping to not stress about this all the way until late January.

That's a bona fide CPD badge right there, and we know the one chicago shows pay pretty close attention to detail on that sort of thing. And that black ribbon is in the same place as the one on Hailey's badge. So that's not good. In addition, upon further examination of the picture, the little silver line i pointed out earlier could easily be attributed to the picture's terrible quality. It was also pointed out to me by friend who doesn't watch the show or even know anything about it (i sent her the picture so she could be an unbiased opinion) that there's really nothing on Hailey that would cast a shadow like that on the badge. And I have to say after a while of looking that i agree.

So it's looking like it probably is a black ribbon.

BUT this doesn't nessicarly mean that one of our favs is doomed to die. Right now a lot of police departments are putting black bands on badges to honor officers who contracted in the line of duty and died. So there's a possibility that's what this is.

Now for the real speculation: given how the writers teased that they're using the unused story planned for last season's finale this season as episodes 4 & 5's story line. They said someone we know gets murdered in that story line. From what i've heard the victim was rumored to be Jordan. So the way i see it there some options here:

1. The character death and the black ribbon are unrelated. They kill off Jordan like it was rumored and the black ribbon is for a random cop (they've worn the black ribbons before for random cops)

2. They don't kill off Jordan and it's a member of intelligence that bites the bullet. We know we're getting a new regular so he could either be filling in for Rojas or someone who dies. (At least we know it's not Hailey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) which leaves a lot of speculation for who it's gonna be. I don't think it'll be Rojas because the writers said they wanted to leave the door open for her return. I am going to straight up say it wont be Voight because it just won't be. Hailey's safe because it's her badge we're looking at. I highly doubt it will be Jay because he's like a Main Character TM. So i feel like our most likely victim list IF it's someone from intelligence is: Kim, Kevin, Adam or Trudy (it had fucking better not be any of those 4. They're all my favs lmao)

3. Idk why i'm giving this it's own section, but Adam's dad. There's an 80% chance that that's a black ribbon in that picture, so if it is, than we know a cop dies. And i'm still hanging onto the hope/belief that they won't kill off a main character again because the turn over rate has been unreal lately. So if they're killing off someone we know who is a cop but isn't a main character Adam's dad is kind of one of the few options.

So there are my thoughts good anon buddy. It's a lot, i know, but thats how my brain works in these situations lol.

[katedrakeohd]

#Wacky Drabbles

Here's part 3 of my Kate and Drake short series where they're visiting Kate's Mom in Oregon.

Find the previous chapter here

Written for @emceesynonymroll and her #Wacky Drabbles game

Other Wacky Drabblers:

@jessiembruno @brightpinkpeppercorn @jovialyouthmusic @sirbeepsalot @bobasheebaby @burnsoslow

Prompt #3 I'll be home in an hour

Word count: approx. 1200

Rated: F for fluffy 😊

---------------------------------------

Something in the Oven

After collecting their scrambled box of baked goods from the car, Drake and Kate follow Lorraine into the house. As Kate's Mother holds the door for them the harried cat from earlier appears from its hiding place next to the porch and bolts inside. With a sigh of annoyance, Lorraine looks down and protests, “Lester! You damn cat, you're nothing but trouble.”

Kate peers around the box she's carrying just in time to see the blur known as Lester skitter out of sight. “I take it Lester isn't supposed to be in the house.”

Lorraine pulls the door shut, shaking her head. “He's our only outdoor cat and usually spends days at a time prowling the yard for mice and other little things he can catch. Whenever he comes into the house he disturbs the peace among the indoor crew. Eventually there'll be a minor scuffle and I'll have to shoo him back outside. But in the meantime he'll probably hide like the rest of ‘em.”

Drake stands awkwardly next to Kate, casting his eyes around the space and trying to spy any of the numerous cats that were supposed to live there. He was used to living with dogs that eagerly welcomed him at the door, housecats were a new experience for him. Apart from the large basket of cat toys he saw next to the sofa there was no sign of the feline residents, and he was surprised to not smell the presence of them either. The interior of the house smelled clean and fresh and woodsy like a log cabin should. As he follows Kate and her Mother into the kitchen he catches the pleasant scent of apples and cinnamon baking.

“It smells like your Mom has one upped us in the bakery department Kate.” Drake says as they set their box on the counter.

“Yeah Mom, you could have mentioned you had a pie in the oven when I said we were bringing goodies.” Kate jokes.

Lorraine holds her hands up and laughs, “Hey, in my defense I didn't know you two were coming before this morning. Besides the pie is for dessert later.”

She puts the broom away and then shoos them out of the kitchen, “Please make yourself at home while I go freshen up. I've been tidying the house like a mad woman since you called me this morning. It's not everyday that this humble corner of Oregon is graced by the presence of a bona fide Duke and Duchess.” With a smirk and a halfhearted curtsey she heads for the bedroom.

Kate grimaces slightly at the emphasis that her Mom puts on their titles. She felt guilty for keeping the past several months of her life a secret from her. It had been a chaotic whirlwind to say the least, and the vast geographic distance and many time zones between Oregon and Cordonia hadn't exactly helped. The last time she and her Mom had spoken on the phone she was still living in New York City. Kate wasn't sure how well or if she paid attention to foreign news or politics. Drake gives Kate's hand a reassuring squeeze. In the relative quiet of the house he feels the need to lower his voice, “Your Mom seems nice.”

Kate lets out the breath she's holding with a nervous grin as she squeezes his hand back. “She is most of the time. But I'm fully prepared for her natural skepticism and sarcasm to appear at some point. Expect to be grilled like the proverbial Thanksgiving goose over dinner. I've suddenly shown up married to a guy from Europe with a fancy title in front of my name. No doubt it's a little bit much for her to wrap her head around.”

Drake grins, wrapping his arm around Kate’s shoulders and kissing her on the temple, “I think I can manage whatever verbal jabs your Mom sends my way. I married a New Yorker remember? Besides you know me, I eat snark for breakfast.”

With a smirk of her own Kate leans into his chest, releasing a sigh of contentment when his strong arms wrap around her tightly. “I knew I married you for a reason. You're my hero.”

“And I have the scars to prove it. C'mon let's explore the house while your Mom's busy. You know how much I love log cabins.” Drake slides his hand into hers again and gives her a conspiratorial wink.

Up in the loft bedroom Lorraine is talking to Carol on the phone while she rummages through her closet. “What do you wear to dinner when you're trying too hard to impress someone?” Lorraine sighs in annoyance as she cradles the phone between her shoulder and her cheek.

“So Katherine and her husband have already arrived then? So tell me what he's like?” Carol’s voice holds an air of amusement and wonder.

Lorraine makes a face and shrugs her shoulders, almost dropping the phone which she catches in her hand as she whines back, “I don't know. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I paid attention to what a guy looks like? I've barely spoken to him.”

Pulling a blouse and a pair of jeans out of the closet, she tosses them onto the bed, still uncertain how to dress up her meager wardrobe to impress a Duke and Duchess. At the same time she's wondering why she was bothering in the first place. Shaking her head she strips out of her comfy sweats and throws them aside. On the other end of the phone call Carol presses for more information.

“Oh come on Rainey, if you're fussing around trying to dress to impress then spill it. Is he handsome and pretentious? Is he ugly and boring? I’m dying with curiosity. Besides I haven't met your daughter yet either. I've only seen pictures.”

With a sigh, Lorraine cradles the phone next to her ear again as she pulls on her jeans.

“Well to be honest, you wouldn't know he was European or a Duke at all. He dresses pretty casual like any other guy. Until he opened his mouth and spoke I would have assumed he was American. His accent is unusual but his voice is nice. He's more rugged than refined. I suppose you could call him handsome.”

Carol laughs in her ear, “Uh Huh so you didn't notice him at all. I'll be home in an hour. Should I pick up a bottle of wine to go with dinner?"

“Sure. We're having pasta, but I'm not sure what kind of wine they like so get a red and a white."

Walking hand in hand Drake and Kate explore the downstairs. They find another bedroom down the hall from the kitchen. As Kate pushes the door open, an orangey colored cat streaks out and then runs down the hall passed them. “Well I guess that's cat number one.” Drake says with a chuckle.

“Aww, such a cutie.” Kate says, watching the cat with a longing expression.

Drake notices how her face lights up and scolds her playfully, “No more pets for you. I know we have a big house and everything but I draw the line at two corgis underfoot. Besides..” He wraps his arms around Kate from behind and places a soft kiss on her cheek, his hand straying down to rest on her belly, “We're going to have a little critter of our own in a few months.”

With a smile Kate looks down and laces her fingers through his. “Yes I know. And I can't wait to tell Mom over dinner.”

Continue to the next part

[sheerioswifties]

I'm confused did you get kidnapped??? Or why are you stuck there for 5 years?

No, not kidnapped but a really messed up, fubar situation and I'm sorry if it's been vague so far, I'm going to tell the story from the beginning with the context and all, I just literally am in the thick of it right now so I both can't really get online cos I have 253536363663 things to deal with and I'm so, so so so sick and exhausted and in pain.

Basically my husband and I got tricked into a situation where we ended up being threatened and extorted... this business they run, they needed his help so they made an agreement to pay him his hourly rate plus benefits and since I was so sick at the time (and there's a ton more context I'm sorry I'll add later) they talked us into moving into the spare rooms in their house, we were supposed to have autonomy and get our own private entrance etc but- they lied. Big time, they screwed us over and got us into a situation where they kept demanding he work all the time, but kept putting off paying, then it started to become hostile and legit like in a movie, and when we'd asked about getting paid they'd get mad, retaliate in all sorts of messed up ways, harassed abused violated stole from went through our mail, garbage, boxes in storage, everything, just hard core messed up stuff; but threatened us we couldn't say anything or they'd evict us which would ruin our ability to get any kind of rental or anything again; while also they kept saying to just wait a little longer, a giant paycheck was coming, just around the corner, oh next month, oh the beginning of the year etc- we got stuck and I being disabled to the point of bedridden lived like in a dorm room like they're so hostile we would never be able to use common areas; we could not use the kitchen at all no cooking no fridge couldn't store food bc we discovered that Jeanette will foul anything you leave out with her bodily fluids like she will, as she says (and she's a bona-fide, actual psychopath; she brags about this stuff she does) she will stick her finger into her "fanny" (we do not know to this day if that means the front or back) and then into any open food. Or pee into dishes before a person uses them, etc. Yeah so- we ended up confined in one room, trying to work up a way out except they'd made it impossible to just move out to a new place now without a rent/income/employment history we couldn't use them, we signed up for everything possible for housing, been on the wait list for years... confined in there literally I did not feel safe leaving the room even to just go to the car to go to an appointment, without them being gone and hubs with me; I didn't feel safe changing or showering or anything like that without him home bc turns out Bill Bryant is a major creepy sexual harasser who had literally just gotten away with a bunch of complaints from his employees bc it was before #metoo and he's an old white man who owns a business so... yeah. And right away I experienced that shit, and Jeanette on the first day helping herself to my things like... I didn't know her, it felt so violating and it got SO bad and just yeah. Been stuck and they'd even do stuff like since I'd stay in the room, sneak up in the hallway all the time and lean up against my bedroom wall to listen in; sometimes they'd creepily talk to me through the wall or tap or drag nails along the wall at like 3AM... and I was stuck. We were held hostage in a sense, they kept saying they were going to pay and the debt they owe grew very big; threatened that if we moved we'd never see it and if we gave them any trouble they'd evict us and we'd never see it. Then they decided to just try to evict anyway and claim they don't owe anything bc "that was a long time ago" dhdgzifizgjzgjgx it's there's so much more SO much more I'm worried about posting this without full context so please just know that

[nxiousxpsistence]

"I'm not very significant."

Frankie says this to Father Andrew in Stigmata. I collect sentences from films just like trinkets from the streets. Some stay with me just like this one, having never dried up as a source of further existential questions.

As an ADHDer deriving my satisfaction (and my self-confidence and my self-worth and my self-esteem) from work, I've tended to see my significance in what I do. And oh boy did my profession fail me...

Interpreting is a cursed profession. You matter and one mistake may make you newsworthy, but you're not to be seen. One job may pay you in coins while forcing you to travel for hours, while another may make you feel like you're on top of the world.

As an immigrant trying to navigate the professional life in London with the horrible possibility of being deported hanging over me, I've seen it all. This Tuesday was the prime example.

I got a call on Monday for a job at an international TV network on Tuesday. I'm a simultaneous interpreter with experience working in diplomacy who is literally HUNGRY for more and DYING to work in the media so I got super excited. It came through a colleague I'd met in another diplomatic job, too, which meant my network was growing. It was supposed to be a job where two countries' delegations would meet for talks.

I said "Absolutely I do".

What happened after was a whirlwind. I found out in about an hour that it was not a delegations' meeting, but a press conference of two presidents. Literal presidents. The highest rank I'd work with in my life.

(I had the chance to work for a president in 2014 but couldn't. That's a different story.)

Then I found out it was for the TV network only, rather than the non-English speakers. That's fine, too. I have live interpreting experience. Heck, I'd even given interviews to African media!

Now, this is the part where significance came into play. Apparently, I was to be picked up and dropped off at my address. I was to issue my invoice and get paid on the day. I was to earn an amount that is roughly equal to my 8 days' work at my current rate. WOW.

Back in [redacted], they wouldn't pick you up even if you were going to another continent, let alone to a job in the same city and getting paid on the same day happened to me maybe twice in almost 20 years. And the amount paid? It was higher than that for a 3-day diplomatic trip abroad combined.

I couldn't sleep with all that excitement (and, of course, the anxiety attack revisiting my impostor syndrome).

But I made it. It went alright. I got to work in a tracking studio (which I hope to visit for purposes other than interpreting some day). I heard a bona fide presenter read out a tracking script. I interpreted for about 20 minutes for the press conference. I missed a few things, excelled in most. I was back home with the money in my account early in the afternoon on the same day. I was going to be able to not worry about the rent for next month! Yay!

(The offices of an international TV network do look great, btw.)

BUT

The same early afternoon, I had to get back to my day job. I work as a community interpreter just to survive at the moment. I interpret for doctor's appointments, legal meetings, and insurance claims, etc. In sharp contrast to the treatment I got in the morning, this job entails me talking about the worst possible human conditions for a fraction of the fees I should be getting.

I don't even know what job I'll get. I just wait in front of the screen for 5.5 hours, trying to be ready for whatever.

Heck, the company didn't even relax its strict dress code for the heat wave. I'm supposed to wear long-sleeved black blouses at all times. They do check!

Don't get me wrong, I love the job itself. An interpreter gets loaded with everything they hear anyway (and my head feels like it's about to explode half the time) but I enjoy helping people. I enjoy their relief after hearing me interpret the first sentence - "Ok, the interpreter is good".

But the conditions make me question the significance I attach myself and the significance the world attaches to interpreters in general and community interpreters specifically.

We must be the cheapest item in the budgets of hospitals in the U.S.

Our physical health already jeopardised, our ears bracing themselves for possible hearing loss, our postures screwed up, and our mental welfare a long forgotten cause. And the ones that do the work appear frightfully grateful for it... Well, it figures.

I once heard an address by one of the high-level interpreters from the European Commission. She said, "We are all mad, aren't we?". This was true on two levels. Yes, we're at an increased risk of cognitive and neurological disorders. And yes, we've got our minds warped up with all the important and minuscule stuff other people load onto our brains.

And we're neither getting paid nor appreciated enough for it.

Let's hope my ego survives this back and forth.

P.S. Request an interpreter for your appointments. The amount of misunderstandings I've come across even with an interpreter must scare you, especially when it comes to obviously paramount medical and legal matters.

[qqueenofhades]

I'm asking this out of curiosity, how can you just let go of a ship like captain swan? you were a hardcore captain swan shipper and you were part of their journey from the very beginning and now you barely care about them if at all. it's just I don't know i thought you were staying till the end & would even have a hard time saying goodbye to them after the show ends. sorry if this came off as rude I'm totally just curious just cuz you were so invested for years now you don't care anymore

Well, honestly, I have discussed this subject before, and tried to be straight about it, and I’m sure you didn’t mean to be rude and are genuinely curious. Still, though, it’s a bit discouraging?

I’m still here. I’m still active on tumblr, I still reblog CS gifs fairly regularly, and I know what’s going on in the show, and I’m looking forward to the wedding. I’ve made several long posts on my process of stepping back from the show and why that happened. It’s certainly not that I just “let go” overnight. It’s been going on for almost a year, and it has not in the least been easy for me. CS got me back into fandom after a long time away. I don’t need to prove my bona fides as a shipper to anyone; I’ve shipped them since 2012, been on tumblr for them and an incredibly active and prolific fandom member since 2013, written multiple novel-length fics and countless drabbles for them (and am still working on TDH, which is my second-longest project EVER behind The North Remembers), answered thousands of questions, written just as many specs and metas and spoiler and roundup posts, went to my first ever con (way out of my comfort zone!) to meet Colin, and still have many dear friends who have changed my life. I don’t ever regret any of the time I did spend on them. I have loved them for a long time and I still care. I just am engaging with it differently, and I have had to do that for several reasons.

As noted, I was super invested during season 5. SUPER. It got to the place where I was thinking about it almost every waking moment, even as I was trying to adjust to a new city and country and degree study and the ups and downs that came with that. My mood was totally dictated by spoilers or theories or how people were reacting to them or how I was going to have to hold things together during an angsty time with all the people I had to comfort/talk through the pain of the Dark Ones/Underworld arc. It took a lot out of me, to be honest. I couldn’t even enjoy the show quite the same way because I was so dependent on it all working out and the effect this had on my ability to deal with things. I’ve always been honest about my years and years of anxiety and depression and what I’ve had to do with that, and the show was something for me to focus on and to try to get me out of my head (again, during an otherwise stressful year). Honestly, that level of addiction/dependence isn’t healthy for anything, especially what is, at the end of the day, just a TV show. The s5 finale burned me the hell out after all that pain with pretty much nothing to show for it, and I struggled over the summer with the thought that I was finally having to withdraw from it in bits and pieces. I watched 6x01, but… nope. That pretty much put the lid on it that I wasn’t prepared to go back at the same level again, and probably wouldn’t be.

As noted, and as anyone who has read my fics can attest, I have no problem with angst. I love angst, even long-term and complex angst. I love serious and dark and morally challenging stories, they are some of my favorites. But as I have also said, I do have a problem when that angst results, to my view, in no measurable story progress and the endless repetition of long-played-out character arcs. I just watched CS struggle to be together for all of season 5. I don’t want to watch more of Emma Has Walls or Killian Keeps Secrets Because He’s Guilty or Oh Look, They’re Separated and Will Die. It’s just… not interesting to me. So I still love them as a ship, but I’ve almost completely disengaged from wanting or expecting canon to provide any kind of satisfying or well-thought-through fulfillment for them. I’ve written tons and tons of fics (and novels). I write all the time. I analyze things for a living. I am an English tutor and a history teacher. I’m a storyteller. I have spent a long time with these characters and coming up with and thinking through what I want to see for them. That doesn’t mean I’m Better ™ than the writers, but it also means that any effort I put in feels like way more than they are, and that’s not a fun or stimulating way to engage with a fandom.

I don’t do hate-watching, and I certainly am not about to rain on the parade of people who do still love it as much as ever (which as I have said many times, I am happy for them). So it’s just better to focus on things that I DO actively enjoy and which I find rewarding and engaging. This year has been incredibly tough for me since about last November and the Orange Nazi’s election (and before that, really). I don’t need to put my limited and valuable free time into things that are just going to drain me or make me annoyed more than I already am. Fandom, once again and though it sometimes can be anything but, is supposed to be fun. And I am trying to space out my interests and have several different places to turn to for inspiration, rather than putting all my eggs in one basket. As noted, it’s just not healthy, and I have to take care with that.

As also noted, I was truly happy about the CS engagement and I will watch their wedding and probably reblog a lot of gifs from it. But I can look at said gifs and enjoy their cute moments and feel as if I’m getting what I need to, rather than having to slog through all of season 6. And honestly, if OUAT is losing people like me – a super, SUPER dedicated fan with years of investment and high-level commitment and fandom participation and creation – it doesn’t take too much guesswork to see that it’s probably losing regular viewers like crazy as well, and that’s why the ratings have taken a nosedive. I know I’m not alone, because I know a lot of fellow fandom people who just can’t muster up the same level of investment, and we’ve all paid our dues. We don’t have to “prove” anything or get caught in the inevitable “Who’s a Real/Better Fan” drama that just makes the whole cycle even more draining. We’re just engaging how we choose to, over a fictional narrative that has meant a ton to us, but has also changed, and we have as well.

So yeah. I still care. I am still a fan. But I think it’s important to remember, as always, that fandom is a FICTIONAL space, and that the people who engage in it are real, with all the hangups and changes of interest and needs and triggers and emotional reasons that go along with that, and we only interact with each other on a very limited basis through tumblr, which is obviously not face to face and where we curate the content we want to post/focus/present. It’s not objective, and it’s fun and amazing and collaborative, but it can also provide a somewhat limited perspective of who people are, what they’re doing, and why they decide to move on from something. So yeah, that’s where I am.

:)