Consternation and Conversation
When reading through Medic’s summary of the community event ‘A Week of Love and Hate 2’ the last thing I expected to see was my own name being congratulated at the end of it, as well as the promise of a random game and an article about me of all things. I’d only ever entered for the hell of it, as I figured it might be fun tackling the topic of Sniper from both sides considering I love to play as him, but I’m not blind to his dodgy secondary designs nor the fact that he’s a strictly love/hate class amongst the TF2 community. All the more fitting for the title of the event I thought. But I was also drawn to the flexibility of the competition as it wasn’t tied to analysis, but could be about anything you simply found fun or charming about Team Fortress 2 as a whole. Hence talk of crit combos and weapon naming.
But along with the warm invitation from Medic came the cold chill of apprehension that was confrontation. I sat there for a good ten minutes. Staring at Medic’s profile, hovering over the “Add Friend” button. Flicking between the profile and the summary of the competition, triple checking I was intended to add her. Then triple checking again just to be safe. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that, surprisingly, clicking between two pages on the internet wasn’t getting me any closer to the contact I was afraid of. Why did it even make me nervous? No idea. I’m not naturally an anxious person, so that only made the knot in my stomach tighten further as I worried about it more.
I psyched myself (To add someone on the internet, I’ll remind you.) up to hit the big blue button, sat there, taunting me. I slammed it down with all the might a mouse click can muster and immediately regretted my decision. Back and forth I jumped between the confirmed button press and my friends list pending list, pondering when the two would connect. A small while passed when suddenly I saw the pending list vanish, replaced with a blue square around Medic’s profile picture. I paused for the inevitable.
A chat box popped up on my screen. “Good day, good sir!” Medic said, enthusiastically. My heart was doing leaps and bounds as if it was running an olympic hurdle. I replied, thanking her for the kind words in the summary. After additional compliments of which I’m not sure I was deserving, she moved on to the first prize, drawing upon Medic’s Brother’s Sister’s Brother’s Gigantic Secret Stash of Game Keys in order to reward me for my drivel she so dearly named ‘writing’. She waged it was either a strategy game or a fighting game. I was still trying to wrap my head around winning a game at all…
I celebrated upon receiving Worms Reloaded much to the relief of Medic. I’ve played the Worms series since the Mega-Drive port, up through console generations until they became class based. The only thing I dislike about Reloaded/Ultimate Mayhem (And a few missing weapons for UM, where’s my Uzi?!) is the Sentry Gun / Bubble Shield. Screw you if you were “that guy”. Fight me like a Worm, damn it! So I was very content with this. Medic then brought up the prize of an article either about myself or a topic of my choosing. I was honest with her when I said I had no idea at all when it came to that, so she left it to me with no expiration date… Heh. Sorry.
It was around this point I started to calm down and talk normally. As opposed to reacting like a hostage with a gun to my head. Naturally, our first topic of conversation past this point was how sexy Sniper was naked. It’s the natural chain of progression, so don’t you dare give me that look. As if you’ve never thought or discussed it. Shamefully, not having read the TF2 comics, (Correcting this, don’t worry.) I accidentally mentioned Sniper as an Aussie instead of a Kiwi. Medic corrected me instantly. I mentioned that I was going to the TF2 comic section as we spoke in order to fix my grievous mistake. She said she’d mirror the action when done with a story “no-one will get or even care about”. Assumptions, however, are just that.
I told her I’d like to hear it. To learn of a world of creation only known to the owner, thoughts and ideas translated into words and materialised onto paper for us all to envision together. How can you not be drawn to that? A private invitation to immerse yourself in a world you never belonged to or even knew existed. The only other force stronger to the human spirit is the glare of a big red button. Because… C’mon, it’s a big red button. She added as a tip that “most of the website is empty, but the Stories/Tales section gets updated semi-regularly with random stuff.”
Editor’s note: Hey, wait a second, I was supposed to write an article about you! But then again, it’s nice knowing that you actually CLICKED a link to a website filled with rambling bollocks. So yes, hugs all round.
Well..*
As I soaked up all the information like a universe-wide sponge, we talked about writing in general. With her own doubts about the project, I told her of past attempts of my own when it came to writing fiction. I’d always loved my ideas until I read them back and upon reflection hated them, but that wasn’t ultimately what stopped my efforts of creating a world of my own. I told Medic “They say all good writers always carry a notepad to jot down ideas. Except when I tried my hand at it I wrote down, EVERYTHING. Pages and pages of stuff, then lost motivation once I realised I’d have to write it all up onto PC.” I laughed about it and offhandedly mentioned I’d write it on a PC if I ever tried it again. “Oh god…”
“Yeah, I did the same thing for MK1, 1.5 and 2. Huge mistake.” Her current revision is her third. Fortunately, going where it’s intended instead of a paper prison. I’m glad to see any world having life breathed into it. It takes time and commitment to build a world up and fortunately Medic, over the course of two years no less, has been doing just that. I wished her luck with the continued development and look forward to it greatly. Back on the topic of writing articles, I told Medic I was trying to think of material to write about. I jokingly suggested I could write about my hate for trading right now as (at the time) I had a 15 day trade hold after trading a key for some metal. But I don’t need to since everyone knows it sucks already.
The chat then spiralled into other topics and memories over the course of an hour. Dial-up connections and their lovely song, landline phones ruining matches and our gaming origins. The wish of being able to stream, learning our connection speeds were both woefully inadequate, discussing opinions of Skyrim and naturally how glitchy Bethesda titles are. Playing them on Very Easy mode simply for speed and immersion, playing BOI:R in order to build muscle memory, random crits, my opinion of CS:GO and Valve as a whole, weapon names and the pain that is lag during matches. But all of these could easily be discussed on their own. Some will be.
So, that was my little adventure. From the first few swift keystrokes that became my first article for this cozy corner on the internet, leading all the way up to this moment with prizes and friendly nudges in the right direction in-between. I feel foolish for ever feeling nervous in the first place, but it’s something new to me. I’d like to thank Medic and Aabicus for hosting the competition and both of them again for helping me participate in the first place. Medic for linking me to the help I needed when WordPress stumped me and Aabicus for writing it.
I look forward to what’s ahead and hope my silly articles bring as much joy to you reading them as they do to me writing them. Thanks.
*Let’s all pretend I didn’t freak out when I saw Medic editing this article, thinking I’d done something horribly, horribly wrong…
Editor’s note: Don’t worry, you’ve done everything horribly, horribly right, and earned yourself an achievement.
