#mostly because i already know what i want to make like. everyone already

[trekwiz]

I currently have a "desk job." I definitely couldn't handle retail, but my last role was a physical job.

As a streaming producer, most of my work included hauling heavy gear. Across a site; sometimes across state lines. And basically building a production space from scratch.

A lot of lifting, bending, crawling. Work in tight spaces: we had one setup with a curved desk fully against a wall, the same width as the room. Any time we had to replace a cable or add new gear, I had to crawl under the desk and squeeze into a standing position, between the desk and wall.

I got diagnosed with degenerative disk in my 30s from my career. That kind of physical work.

I like my desk job a lot better. But you can't just slot anyone into it. It doesn't require a credential; other companies prefer a PMP, but we don't. Broadcast is specialized experience, but classrooms and credentials are not the barrier.

Producers on the team who have background to understand it consider it to be overwhelming: they strongly do not want my job. I know, because I advocated for promoting internally when we had openings. They refused because of how difficult the work is.

We filled the roles with people who have experience in the same industry. They were "comfortable" after 3 months of training. That means they could lead projects mostly independently. 2 years later, they're still coming to me for direction on a weekly basis because a lot of our work is highly complex. For people who understand it.

If you pluck someone out of any other job to do it, they're going to fail; they'll leave if they don't get fired. And I mean that in both directions of the nonexistent scale of skilled vs unskilled work: you can't take a scientist out of the lab and have them do my job successfully. Medical doctors will fail much faster. I know this--they're among my clients who turn to me for guidance on the technologies I support.

We also had someone clueless in an "unskilled" desk position for about a year. This individual was absolutely not capable of handling "a basic desk job." They're directly responsible for the success I've had in re-positioning the role as a skilled position.

They were a complete and total disaster in the role; they actively made everyone else's job more difficult and unpleasant. Their peer had to fix upwards of 80% of their work. They wouldn't communicate about their progress, so others missed deadlines--you don't get a do-over in live broadcast, so that greatly increased everyone's stress. Clients would get incorrect information and complain on a regular basis.

They would refuse to fix problems, and make the false claim that they did it correctly, even if their error was openly visible with their signature on it.

This person received personal training for months, written step-by-step documentation of their process, and performed the same tasks every day. But they'd complain or refuse the work if someone else in a different functional area wouldn't give them the exact step-by-step instructions to complete the same basic tasks each time.

The idea that just anyone is capable of doing "a desk job" is based on not knowing what constitutes "a desk job."

I would also add that the entry level desk jobs most likely to have their skill trivialized in this way are administrative assistants. It's a career that is still largely dominated by women; their employers significantly undervalue and underpay their skilled labor already. There are outliers, but this typically an undervalued position.

The amount of time management and organizational skills needed to do that role successfully often goes unnoticed. They need specific people-skills to encourage colleagues and vendors to do work outside of their norm, and to smooth over scheduling mishaps. They require great communication skills that not everyone has.

Trivializing the skill it takes to do their job helps keep them at the bottom of the pay scale. And importantly. Doing that doesn't lift up anyone else, except for the highly paid executives who are pocketing the saved labor costs.

[vaguely-concerned]

walking through lucanis' mind prison. the tam lin of it all

[noellefan101]

Silent Living

Characters: Noelle, Kinich, Lynette, Beidou, Diluc x mute GN!reader

Summary: You're mute, and cant talk? not a problem for your partner, they can find other ways to communicate, and honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

Warnings: mute reader, most of them dont know sign language but there are people where i think they would either have learned it already or will learn it for you, gn reader as always

Note: hehe its kinda hard to write for Noelle tbh, i just can't see her romantically if that makes sense, its like a platonic obsession i have for her. but i chose to write for some girlies bc i felt like it, luv you :P

Noelle

She's a sweetheart and i fully believe she would try to learn sign language the day you meet for the first time. but for the sake of the cute gestures lets pretend she barely knows any words in it, or that you arent the best yourself despite probably needing it heh.

(she would teach you some if so, or learn with you)

In a classic Noelle fashion, she does literally anything for you, though people would normally just have to speak her name, you can't. so she always keeps an extra eye on you to ensure she's there when you need her help. that may be a given, but its truly what shes best at doing.

Loves writing little notes for you, whether its just so you can remember something or if its to invite you anywhere, she loves it. and she has definitely not been carrying pen and paper with her for weeks so you could write notes for each other, no no.

I dont imagine her being the best with words, but is always very good at comforting. so if you need some reassurance or just comfort you can come to her. and you can let her know to be silent by putting a finger over her mouth if you like the silence more. she wont be offended don't worry.

Kinich

Not very good with words and likes silence when possible, so it's very common for you to sit in silence doing an activity together. he's best with actions at least, both giving and receiving, so just doing a tiny chore for him would mean more than words could.

Though it may be difficult to do anything for each other since he's quite busy, and so could you be. but he always has time to sit with you for at least 30 minutes a day and just spend quality time together.

if you ever need anything from him, he has a notebook on him at all times that you're free to write in. Although Ajaw has made a fuss about it being annoying to wait for you, but he'll shut up if Kinich locks him up.

Lynette

She loves the silence you bring. being around her brother all the time can get annoying, no matter how much she loves him, so a quiet tea time with you is often just what she needs. she knows you can feel out of place or left out even since you cant communicate as easily with her siblings. but she is always ready to talk for you.

No matter how much she hates public speaking, and how often she gets her brother to speak for her, she'll speak for you. if there's anything you'd like to say, just write it down and show it to her. she might even know what you wanted to say, by how you stand and how your muscles move. so she will sometimes speak for you before you even get to start writing it down.

She has made sure you're a part of the conversation, not just there and looking around. she might have some knowledge about sign language, but she knows many do not and makes sure everyone understands you.

(she might even ask father if they can get classes in sign language, or at least the siblings of hers that you interact with most often)

Beidou

Maybe not the best at silent communication, but she tries her very best. if she doesnt know sign language she'll learn it, mostly because she feels it would make you more comfortable, but its also something that she may find interesting.

She is very good at dealing with different kinds of people though, so expect yourself to feel right at home wherever you are on her ship. she might even have started teaching her crew how to talk with you properly, whether thats getting you something write down on or learning them a bit of sign language that im not sure of.

Unfortunately it all goes in weird directions when she's drunk, while she talks for you it might be hard to get her to pay attention enough or even speak your thoughts properly. Kazuha is your savior in this case.

Diluc

He has made sure every single maid and anyone he hires learn to speak through their hands. he might even have prepared for it before you started dating, and even some of his staff you have never met before just knows how to speak with you.

Its a given that you're going to be well treated at the dawn winery, but Diluc makes sure you feel the most at home you'll ever experience. you have at least 1 maid whos ready to tend to you in a seconds notice, whether its jsut that you need something to write on or you need to know where you lover is.

Will literally drop anything for you with just a finger on his shoulder. whatever you need, he'll do it. need a hug? no need to even gesture it he knows, someone doesnt understand you at all? he's ready to talk in your place for hours on end.

I might have written it weirdly again sry, im not mute and i just like writing, Luv Ya- Masterlist

You are welcome to reblog and like any of my posts, but you CAN NOT translate, copy or hate on anybody for liking my posts

[maspers]

I understand why they couldn't bring him back, but let's be honest a version of Leverage Redemption with Nate still around would have been an absolute joy to watch.

He'd take one look at Breanna and be like "who's this sassy lost child?" And he'd roll with it but he'd also just completely and possibly deliberately fail to explain ANYTHING to her. Breanna would call Hardison like every other day to complain about how Nate is a complete disaster of a man and Hardison would be like "Yes, I know, we all know, welcome to the club".

Meanwhile Harry Wilson would manage to spend the bulk of the season being even more confused than he already was in canon. Like. That's Nathan Ford??? I know about Nathan Ford, he was a legendary insurance agent! He went rogue and became one of the most successful criminals in the business! How is he A COMPLETE MESS??? Nate for his part is at first very untrusting of Harry and spends the first few episodes subtly manipulating the poor man into unnecessarily weird situations just to see what he'll do. Sophie chides Nate for being mean.

The schemes get changed, naturally, since Sophie is perfectly fine with letting Nate continue to be all Mastermindy, and the end result is very bizarre season that follows the same plot beats as the Canon one but in an inexplicably different way.

To make matters worse, when you have Nate around inevitably Maggie and Sterling show up (Sterling is oozing villainous enthusiasm at the chance to match wits with Nate and a slightly new Leverage Team, Maggie on the other hand does not want to be here but has accepted this is just a recurring part of her life now) and both of them arrive at the worst possible moment for everyone (except possibly Nate, who planned for this). Breanna immediately starts complaining about the sexual tension between Nate and Sterling, causing Hardison and Maggie to bust out laughing. There's a nonzero chance Harry ends up low key flirting with Maggie since Sophie's with Nate here, but it never goes anywhere.

Naturally the Mastermind Job gets significantly more bizarre than it already was. Everyone gives Nate a hard time over it. EVERYONE. The man never catches a break for the entire thing. They don't even let him run the con, partially because they're a bit mad but mostly just to troll him. Eliot grabs Nate and shakes him sternly at least once. Actually probably many times, throughout the season, as things get weirder.

Harry leaves at the end of Redemption Season 1 and Nate just nods knowingly and instructs Hardison to open a betting pool for how long it will be before Harry comes back. Parker wins, successful guessing it down to the exact day. Eliot accuses her of cheating.

Then in Redemption Season 2 Tara Cole shows up and everything gets worse.

[catras-breakup-song]

how do you feel about the whole "you always wanted more" line that got cut? at first i was wondering why they did that because adora didn't want more until it made me think "huh, what if prime was just running on catra's memories and didn't actually know adora?" but i'm curious as to what you think

OH MY GOD I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED THIS. i am such a sucker for the cut STC script. back in late 2020 & early 2021 i had a twitter layout based on “that little spot on the roof that only they knew about” because S3 is my favorite:

even better, i have another old twitter fancam saved from around that time too that used that screenshot of the script in the beginning. it was by the username yoosene but is now long gone, so i reuploaded it to imgur here (the hands part, i’m going insane…)!

anyway, as for interpretations, it was absolutely to manipulate & guilt-trip adora. i recently saw someone say (i don’t remember where though, sorry) that he was torturing both of them by setting up that nasty fight against both of their wills and had planned to kill catra all along — despite saying he wouldn’t right after she rescued glimmer and was imprisoned for it, in my opinion there was an unspoken “yet” even though he did technically say that word but you know what i mean; “you will be of use to me, and then everyone from your blighted planet, including yourself, will be destroyed.”

that’s the thing about what the show was trying to convey through her stay on prime’s ship via glimmer’s desperate pleas, isn’t it? her illusion of power was only ever temporary. once she no longer had anything of value to serve, what would she be worth? how could she have genuinely believed that he wanted to save her, of all living beings, from the curse of humanity & will of consciousness? what makes one individual different to an omnipotent god compared to countless others across the universe throughout space and time? i truly believe that he was subtly mocking her when he talked of her being “exalted, raised up above the other wretched creatures of [her] home world.”

i was actually trying to find another five by five takes quote about this, because mentioning them is always an obligation for me, but surprisingly i didn't really find anything about how catra had worked her way up to prime's recognized single subordinate (only that moment of reflection afterward, which is just this entire short video), and was under the false impression with a cocky & confident attitude that her position meant something for her safety & survival; i'm mostly referring to this moment:

the horde's the horde...even in space. as long as i'm of value to horde prime, i've got a place in this world. i can work my way up here, just like i did before.

actually y’know what… i’m going to tag @horde-princess because this is starting to dive into religious meta which is like… her whole gimmick thingy. we would be blessed (pun intended) to see your take on this writing that never made it to the show, if you haven’t given it already!

now this is veering too far off from the original point after getting sidetracked. the tone of those quotes in the alternate script is (fake) pity, and horde prime was entertained by the struggles of mere mortals. to make adora a failure of what she represented would surely force her to give up she-ra to him, because what would even be the point anymore of living up to expectations if she couldn’t save catra first & foremost (that’s something that she struggled with since initially leaving the horde over three years ago due to how catra made her feel about supposedly breaking their childhood promise… but it’s a story for another post)?

i don’t doubt that your thought process is at least partially right too though, anon. prime didn’t read adora’s mind thoroughly at any point, so it’s entirely possible that he just read off catra’s intense feelings of abandonment & betrayal. that being said, if he really did see all as he claimed, maybe he was able to recreate an objectively accurate collection of events and knows what really happened and what the intentions behind certain actions were. i also wonder if catra secretly knew deep down that adora’s defection wasn’t directly about her but just couldn’t admit it until she had time to deeply reflect on it during “corridors.”

i’ll leave this messy, unorganized post with an amazingly relevant gif set made by an editor whose work on here i really enjoy:

as i said a long time ago, you just had to be there on november 19th 2020 when that excerpt was released because the hype was crazy!

[bilbao-song]

tiny secret rocker santa updates (11/21/24)

nothing terribly exciting today but just to keep u all Abreast:

before i get into anything else i am once again harassing asking you to pleeeeeaaaaase 🗣️🗣️🗣️ consider reblogging The Post if at all possible. i promise all ur followers love seasonal events soooo much. reblogging is super helpful and also pretty much the only way to make sure people outside my own circle of followers are aware this is happening <3 reblogs = better matches for everyone yay. thank u everyone who has done this already!!!! u are the best and i love u forever

i’m pretty close to being caught up on numbers but still have like 14ish to go atm. i'm going pretty slowly out of sheer necessity, but if you haven’t received one yet, you can probably expect it sometime within the next 48 hours <3 if you don’t get one by then be sure to send me a message!!

similarly!! i know sign ups are open through the 28th (maybe even the 29th idk we’ll see what happens) but if at all possible i’m going to try to get an early start on sending matches, mostly because of the whole not wanting to get hit w the spam filter again thing <3 so some of you MIGHT get matched as early as like, the 26th

as a last little note the bands listed here are mostly still at least slightly pertinent (especially kiss and the cure!!!). will probably make one last list like this in liiike a day or so :')

okie dokie that's all

sign-up link if anyone wants it <3 general info here

[misc-obeyme]

Re: the earlygame beef between Mammon and MC. I always find it so funny whenever I see the (abundantly common, entirely typical) "Mammon has been there for us since day one! Our first man! Mammon is the only brother who never threatened to kill us or try to hurt us!" posts. Because it's just...so incredibly obvious how wrong they are? I have to assume that the people making those posts either literally never played the actual game at all, or they played with their eyes closed. Or perhaps they don't know how to read.

Because the game was literally shoving the fact that Mammon hates your guts and wishes you were dead in your face for like 2 or 3 Lessons straight. On day one when he first meets you? He can't stand your ass. He wants you gone. All the way up until you make a pact with him, and even for a little while AFTER making a pact, Mammon actively despises you and tells you so himself. And then multiple other characters (including Diavolo, Barbatos, and Lucifer) ALSO come along and give you extremely obvious exposition like "wow, it's Mammon's job to watch over you and protect you in this hostile new environment? And he abandoned you the first chance he got, leaving you to the wolves? Haha, classic Mammon. Of course he abandoned you to get eaten by other demons, what a goofy guy"

And YOU LITERALLY ARE ALMOST EATEN BY DEMONS. BECAUSE MAMMON DIDN'T GAF ABOUT DOING HIS JOB AND DITCHED YOUR ASS. The manga goes into more detail about it too, showing that you literally came to harm because Mammon abandoned you when he was supposed to keep you safe. And later on when you call Mammon out, he threatens to kill you and eat you. To your face. He literally does that.

Idk, it's just crazy to me how badly people can mischaracterize these things. I know that Mammon is the fandom baby or w/e but Mammon fans in particular love to rewrite history and infantilize him as this sweet innocent woobie who never did anything wrong. "Mammon is the only brother who never wanted to kill us!" you're literally lying, lol. He threatens to kill you and eat you to your face. "Mammon loved us from the very beginning!" No he didn't, he repeatedly told you that he hated you lmao.

This happens with other characters too, yeah. People include Beel as part of the "never tried to hurt us" group even though he absolutely DID try to hurt us when Mammon physically force-fed us his custard (another thing Mammon did to deliberately harm us) Also Satan gets thrown in the "one of the bad ones who tried to hurt us" camp, despite never actually doing anything to us. He gets angry and goes on an edgy little rant, but if you actually know how to read you'll notice that he doesn't ever actually DO anything to harm us or try to kill us. He never makes any kind of move to actually harm us, but everyone assumes he does? Wild. But Mammon gets this the worst for some reason.

I could go into a whole entire separate spiel about how the Mammon infantilization also applies to the "everyone bullies him for no reason even though he's literally an innocent pure baby who never did anything wrong ever" but I'm just gonna double the length of this already long rant. What's crazy is I don't even dislike Mammon, he's cool. But oh my god some Mammon fans can be absolutely fucking insufferable 😭

Woobie 😭 I'm sorry, I know there's like paragraphs happening here but that word sent me lol.

I'm gonna level with you here, anon. This kinda thing just does not bother me in the slightest. I mean it doesn't matter to me if people mischaracterize or rewrite the story to fit their preferences. If it makes them happy, then they can go ahead and live their truth.

I think I probably land somewhere in between on the Mammon characterization scale, mostly because I like when he's a lil pathetic~

Anyway, if you want me to get into the nitty gritty of how I characterize Mammon, I can certainly do that. But I kinda get the vibe that you just needed to rant a bit. And that's okay, my ask box is always open for ranting or rambling or anything else!

[aniseandspearmint]

Oh, no PROBLEM, life happens, and I'm just glad you're doing better!

And it's never too late to pick fun things back up. I had to dig around for the notes i made for the next bit of this, and then re-read it over, because it HAS been a year! XD

SO, okay, a part 7!

YES, I am SO GLAD the way Frodo is NOT having a great or easy time came across! I’d hoped that would work! It can be hard, when your body changes and suddenly you’re not capable of the same stuff you were. I was trying to convey that kind of dysphoria.

Maedhros! Maedhros is HAVING A DAY. A good day! A MIRACULOUSLY GOOD DAY.

The kind of good day he can barely trust is REAL bc, lbr, he hasn’t really had a good day innnn. Um. Lets just say a long time. So this is the kind of day that has him covertly running mental checks just to make sure this is still reality. He keeps counting Maglor’s freckles and running his finger tips over his horse and her tack, and the tooling on his belt and faulds just to check that the things he’s seeing, and sensations he feels match up right.

He can at least throw himself into logistics a bit here, first in chivying all the escaped thralls our Intrepid (and exhausted) Heroes have been herding to safety in Himring.

Then he corrals Celegorm and Curufin. (This ended up mostly dialogue!)

Maedhros: *stares pointedly*

C&C: Err.

Maedhros: *calm and measured* I have heard what you’ve been up to in Nargothrond, brothers. Rest assured, I WILL be taking that out of your hides later. For now though *points at the crowd of people filling the hall behind them* Exactly WHAT happened to do THAT?

Curufin: Honestly we don’t KNOW, Nelyo!

Celegorm: When we caught up to them, Finrod, Beren, Luthien, Huan, Tyelpe and that Annatar ner were already gone off to Angband, leaving Finrod’s steward and Frodo to hold the camp.

Maedhros: *blinks* Frodo? Who? And what kind of a name is that? (Note: Frodo is WESTRON it’s gotta sound SO WEIRD to the elves tbh. He’s definitely gonna get slapped with a proper elven name at some point here. Elves gotta give people extra names after all especially in the first age)

C&C: *baffled kind of shrugs*

Curufin: *glowers* The boy is SOMEWHERE in the crowd. He’s remarkably cagey for a boy who can’t be more than 80, and I haven’t been able to corner Tyelpe about him yet, but he rather looks REMARKABLY like that Annatar. And Mother. And Grandfather. (Note: Frodo probably doesn’t look quite like a teenager really, but he’s so coltish in his new body, that’s coming across as youth to the elves that see him)

Maedhros blinks at that. Well. He never thought Tyelpe the sort, but, well, Curufin had been a bit smothering since they’d come to Beleriand. He’s thought Tyelpe was weathering it with more grace and patience than was usually found in their line, but maybe he’d just decided to go around his father? He wouldn’t be the first in the family for that. (Note: yesss Mae, make some logical conclusions with the info you have! Compare him to you and Finno a bit! You’re VERY wrong but it’s still a good guess!)

Celegorm: He’s got one of Tyelpe’s hairclips. One of the ones father made.

Maedhros: *eyebrows* Interesting. But, at this moment, irrelevant. We can sort that out later. What else can you tell me?

Celegorm: A few hours after we got there, the whole ground heaved like a shaken table cloth. Then some hours after that, Tyelpe and everyone came out of the night leading that lot *waves a hand a the hall* Tyelpe had the silmarils.

Curufin: There wasn’t really TIME to stop and ask questions. We regrouped and lit out for Himring. Luthien is TERRIFYING by the way. She provided the bulk of the power, her and that Annatar. We pitched in too but them, us, Finrod, and Tyelpe have been cycling songs of power for- *blinks* How long has it been since Angband shook, Nelyo?

Maedhros: thirteen days and nights.

Curufin: *sputters*

Celegorm: Huh. No wonder I want to sleep for a week. I haven’t done a march like that since I was with The Hunt. *waves* Anyway, we talked to a few of the thralls, and from what few who were in the throne room said, Luthien walked in all lovely and enchanting, and sang with three voices. It put Morgoth out like a fussy toddler. And then the wolves and the orcs, and even the balrogs, everything evil, dropped where they stood as well. The orcs were dead. No one checked the balrogs. Then Luthien’s man climbed the throne and took the crown and passed it down to Tyelpe. Then he and Annatar left and came back with BLASTING powder and lined the place while Morgoth slept.

Maedhros: *wheezing incredulous laugh*

Curufin: Annatar said the dragons were UNDER the throne room Nelyo. All the eggs, all the breeding stock.

Maedhros: *squints* *head tilt* wait. *slow blink* How would he KNOW that? I didn’t know that, and I know Angband as well as any former thrall.

C&C: *exchanged uneasy glances*

Curufin: We’re not sure. Finrod and Tyelpe trust him though. And, there’s Frodo. *vague hand wave* We heard some snatches of conversation, but nothing that makes much sense.

Maedhros: Right. Where’s Maglor? Nevermind, I saw him with Luthien, I’ll get them, and find Finrod. You round up Tyelpe and this Annatar fellow, and bring them up to my study. See if you can find the Frodo lad you mentioned.

Maedhros needs to corral all the important people ASAP and GET SOME ANSWERS.

He’s able to locate Maglor being charming at Luthien and Beren fairly quickly. Whereas Celegorm and Curufin look as if they’ve been on a hard march for days, Luthien, apart from the general grime of travel in the wilds, looks fresh as a daisy in may. Exactly how much power does she HAVE?? Never mind, one thing at a time. She and Beren graciously accept an invitation to a more private area. They’ve eaten and washed a bit, same as the throng of ex-thralls, but it’s VERY crowded. And They want to talk to Tyelpe, Finrod, Frodo, and Annatar too. They know more than Maedhros! But there wasn’t a LOT of time for other questions after establishing that there was some kind of time travel going on!

Tyelpe and Annatar aren’t hard to locate either. They knew this was coming. A quick wash up and food, and maybe a change of clothes, and it’s on to the Next Thing.

Note: oh. Huh. I didn’t think of it before, but I wonder what Annatar and Frodo are WEARING??? Some casual Valinorin clothes? I bet they were NOT dressed for getting dropped in the past! If it was just like, vibes based, maybe some clothes Annatar thinks of as ‘comfy’ rather than anything either of them might have been wearing before they were dropped into the past, since their bodies were created for this unlike Tyelpe or Finrod!

Annatar reluctantly taps on Frodo’s mind, and tells him Maedhros is collecting them.

Frodo, by this point, is not crying anymore, but is the kind of wrung out EXHAUSTED, that only days and days of rough travel and then a fierce crying jag will make you. Finrod almost offers to carry him, but Frodo just sets his mouth and gets up off the stone floor, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other and plodding along next to Finrod, who directs him around the crowd and into the keep proper.

Maedhros was somehow NOT expecting this Frodo child to look as much like family as Curufin and Celegorm insisted, but oh dear, if anything they understated it. He looks VERY much like the elf called Annatar. The hair, the skin, the eyes, but the other features. They were right, and Maedhros can see little echoes of his kin all over him.

He’s also swaying where he stands next to Finrod, with red eyes and tear tracks through the wilderness grime on his face. (Remember, Frodo skipped the wash up and clothes change area. Finrod too. I’m sure once they get through the first awkward conversation, someone will get them each a basin and some clean clothes!)

Maedhros makes eye contact with Finrod and jerks his chin at the soft couch set before the fireplace. Finrod takes the hint, and leads the young ner that is, in all likelihood Maedhros’s grand-nephew over and gently pushes him down on it.

Maedhros turns his attention to Tyelpe, and also Annatar. Tyelpe steps around Maedhros, and slings the crown off his torso and sets it down on Maedhros’s desk where it thuds down with a surprisingly light thump for a thing wrought of iron and misery.

Maedhros: So. Explain. Lady? This seems to have started with you?

Luthien shrugs gracefully, and sets herself down in Maedhros’s towering armchair before the fire and tells her part of the story. It is, thankfully, lacking the canon bits of C&C capturing her and being creepy assholes! Because Tyelpe stole Huan and met up with her before that could happen here!

When she’s finished with her part, with input from Beren, and Finrod, Maedhros turns and raises his eyebrows at his nephew.

Some very speaking looks are exchanged rapidly between Finrod and Tyelpe and Annatar and Frodo.

Finally Tyelpe just shrugs helplessly.

Tyelpe: Uncle, we have NO IDEA. One minute we’re in Fourth Age Tirion, the next I’m in Nargothrond and Finrod is in Sauron’s Tower, and Annatar and Frodo are there too. And Frodo is an elf.

Maedhros. Blinks. And replays that. Nope. Still makes absolutely NO sense.

Maglor: … I’m sorry, what?

Tyelpe: We’ve done this before. It all went SO much worse. Annatar wasn’t there before, though, or Frodo.

Finrod: Well. Annatar sort of was. Why are there two of you now, by the way? That’s. Kind of alarming.

Annatar: When I spoke to the One, and was changed, I was FUNDAMENTALLY changed. To hazard a guess, when this… Event happened, I was too different to integrate with my former self. He is maiar, I am elven. I came to my senses, he’s still following his shining plan.

Frodo: And me?

Annatar: We share something of our spirits on a deep level. And since hobbits have not woken yet, and will not for many many years yet, I imagine this was the only way for you to have a form here and now.

Frodo: *watery chuckle* Oh. Yes I suppose that makes sense.

Please imagine Maedhros and Maglor and C&C ping-ponging back and forth here, COMPLETELY CONFUSED by this conversation. But desperately trying to add up the bits they’re hearing into some kind of coherent narrative. Maedhros is squinting at Annatar with sudden DEEP suspicion.

Maglor: I’m sorry, can we back up a bit here? Fourth Age VALINOR????

Tyelpe: *sighs* *sits down next to Frodo* We all might as well sit down, this is going to take a while.

^__^

HEY.

I had the most interesting dream after falling asleep switching between the latest chapter of The Horrowing and a time travel fix it in another fandom. I thought you might enjoy a brief summary?

Post fic canon Annatar, Finrod, Celebrimbor, and Frodo getting the most hilarious do over of the First Age.

Finrod and Celebrimbor got dropped in their past bodies, bc same souls. Which has Finrod JUST captured by Sauron, before any of his 10 have been munched.

Celebrimbor is of course having a surreal not quite panic attack in Nargothrond.

Annatar, well. Annatar is CHANGED. He is quite literally too different from what he once was for them to qualify as the same soul anymore. Which is gratifying. If inconvenient bc there are now TWO of him, Annatar and full on Sauron. But they're similar enough that Annatar was dropped very close to Sauron.

Frodo is an elf. Dream logic was that hobbits do not exist yet, and his soul has touches of Annatar and Aman. He looks disconcertingly like a mix of Annatar and Celebrimbor, and they are NOT thinking about that right now. Hopefully ever.

Most of the dream centered around all of them doing their best to set aside freak outs, while getting Finrod and his merry band (plus Beren) OUT of Sauron's grasp.

There was a FANTASTIC moment where on the way out, Sauron comes face to face and soul to soul with Annatar and he's just like;

Sauron: *jaw dropped fully horrified face* WHAT are YOU?!?!?

Annatar: *shoving elves behind him, nose in the air* Wouldn't YOU like to know, weather boy. *uses Song to blast him through a wall while he's distracted*

The whole thing featured 10 other elves and Beren as a baffled peanut gallery.

Meanwhile Celebrimbor is weighing the pros and cons of just- drugging his uncles and shoving them in a back room somewhere where he can bolt the door. He thinks he can maybe get Huan to help if he explains?

It was SO much fun.

(hope you have a good day!)

Oh my god. This may be the best ask I've ever gotten, for so many reasons.

The fact that your subconscious was like "Yeah if Frodo's getting a new body it looks like Annatar For Some Reason"

The image of future!Annatar getting into a fight with Sauron in front of Finrod (probably happy about this development) and Beren and the other 10 (INCREDIBLY CONFUSED)

The fact that the dream was partially centered on everybody trying not to panic, which is in fact what the Harrowing is all about for a while

Absolutely incredible.

...I feel so bad for poor Celebrimbor dealing with Nargothrond all by himself while the others are off having adventures. I hope their next stop after the rescue is to swing by and pick him up. Also, I dearly want to know what Annatar has to say to Beren on the subject of his current Luthien-and-Thingol-and-Silmarils situation.

[snowflakebottles-art]

yeah okay wise guy. *neopets your kingdomhearts*

PART 2 HERE

[talkorsomething]

I have Got to get more transgender

[townslore]

discovery of the day

[agirlwiththoughtsandnegativity]

.

[exopelagic]

auuudggghghhrhrhrbrr

[transmasc-tabris]

More screenshots (bonus, managed to find Bull a shirt and don't know how to feel about that)

[snekdood]

bitches prolly out here psychoanalyzing my old art on behalf of my abuser to cushion their belief that im a Horrible Person but then dont see the irony when I point out the shitty things my abuser has drawn and how I see it as clear evidence of their mindset and beliefs (of what's okay to do and how to treat people) descending and pairing that along with everything else they've done and it paints a clear picture of how this person got to the point of thinking it was okay to abuse me the way they did and then the people looking for reasons to hate me through my art will act like "they're just drawings !!!" about their art. which one is it. does someones art say something about them or not? or does it only say something about them if you hate them?

[barabones]

I forget exactly where I saw the initial post asking for volunteers, but on July 10th, I reached out to the listed email. Jane, the organizer, got back to me right away and within an hour I was added in their discord.

Up until this point, I had been maintaining an average 8 ESims myself, so I already had experience checking in on them on a daily basis. The folks there helped me onboard with the spreadsheets for keeping track, and now it's very easy for me to catalog new ones I buy and record daily data usage. The whole process takes me maybe 20-40 minutes a day depending now on how many ESims actually need to be topped off.

Jane has been very up front with lots of the group's information, with frequent announcements about the groups current funds and amounts of daily ESims sent out. She and the others have been super helpful with getting funds to us when needed, and I've almost never had to actually spend any of my own money for any of this.

In the time that I've been volunteering, they figured out how to run a Business account with the Nomad ESim company. Which means that now and then they can just send 15 or so ESims my way, and I just catalog them and send the QRcodes towards Mirna and the Connecting Gaza folks. No more wasting time with the purchasing process, while getting a bit of a bulk discount on top of that.

We also share updates on whatever brand of ESims are most needed. When folks on the ground tell us that one network doesn't seem reliable, we are able to switch over for a while until either the networking issue is fixed, or we all pressure customer service enough to replace them for us.

There's also lots of complaining about new UI updates an general website bugs. There's surprisingly a lot of them and it's good to know other folks are getting info from customer service when things go wrong.

In August they made a meme channel

Anyways....

Lets get into some stats for myself. In 2 months (July 10- Sept12) I have:

Send off 171 ESims

Maintained around 60 active ones

Topped up these active ESims 139 times

Spend over $6400 donated dollars

I have multiple power users who have burned through close to 100GB. 2 of them have broken 200GB. These are most likely being used as hot spots.

Why am I sharing all of this? Mostly to show how easy it has been to make a marginal difference. I have helped at least 60 people stay connected with the outside world in just 2 months. Probably more if we assume some of the power users becoming hotspots for other folks. This is 20-40 minutes of my time a day, and I honestly regret not signing up to do this sooner.

I was specifically limiting myself to this workload because I wanted to test the waters. Those stats was me specifically not wanting to push myself and see what impact a normal person could make with 20 minutes a day. At this point I think I will be taking more advantage of Nomad's Tuesday discounts to really bulk up my numbers. It's pretty easy to buy 15 or so every Tuesday, and then send em over.

If you would like to join us in this endeavor, please reach out to Jane at cripsforesimsforgaza(at)gmail

We are specifically looking for people in European time zones, since a lot of us are in the Americas and that's quite a difference between us and Gaza. If not, that's no problem!

If you can't participate, that's totally fine, but please donate what you can! Folks like you are the ones who keep us going!

I hope this information has been useful in some way. Like I said, I wish I had heard about this group sooner, with how easy it has been to do. I can track my direct impact of what my daily time is doing for folks, and seeing the data be used up a little bit more day by day gives me hope for everyone in Gaza. Thank you for your time.