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wildlyminiaturesandwich · 5 years

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Do you have pcos? or any kind of health problem that makes it hard for you to lose weight? I'm just curious, don't answer it if you don't feel comfortable

Ok so I got a couple messages asking this same thing, as well as people suggesting that “just lose weight and then try again”, so I’m gonna put a bunch of information (and I mean A BUNCH of information) under a cut here that explains everything and why “just losing weight” isn’t a solution nor is it the problem. Like, at all.

If you don’t want to read all of this, you really don’t have to. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom and I wouldn’t blame you for just scrolling straight there and skipping my rant lol

I don’t have PCOS, no, my weight is mostly a “side effect” of my mental health and years of trying different medications to help with that. Just in case some people aren’t aware, two of the most common side effects of anti-depressants are increased appetite and weight gain. That coupled with one of the two most common symptoms of chronic depression — lack of energy and motivation — means that over the years I’ve slowly put on weight.

Even though every doctor insists on telling me I’m overweight and need to lose weight as though I’m completely oblivious to my own body and such an idea as losing weight has never occurred to me before, I have in fact tried to lose weight many many times over the years with very little success no matter how healthily I ate and how much I exercised. The only time I have ever had success was back in my 20s when I switched to a gluten and dairy free diet to try to fix another issues I was having with my gut. This is why, in the past few weeks, Mr Sandwich and I have been slowly switching our diets to be gluten and dairy free.

BUT even though I am doing that, and exercising as much as I can with my limited energy, it’s not enough. I can lose weight, sure, but I can’t lose enough weight quickly (and safely) enough to be able to do IVF, which I’ll get to in a minute. So it’s not always as simple as “just lose weight”, everyone is different and despite what most people think, a lot of overweight people don’t chose to be that way. Why anyone would think that is beyond me, but a lot of people do and because of this you get people treating fat people as less than human, as though we’re not worthy of any kindness or sympathy because obviously we had to have done this to ourselves, right?

This is also why I get so annoyed when people equate being overweight to being unhealthy. The whole “overweight people are twice as likely to die early” bullshit is nonsense! Sure sometimes it’s the case, but not always. I am not medically unhealthy at all. Apart from being unable to conceive and my mental health issues, neither of which are a symptom or side effect of my weight, I am actually perfectly healthy. Over the past few years I’ve had every test anyone could come up with to try to find out why I wasn’t falling pregnant and that includes things like liver, kidney and thyroid function, cholesterol, diabetes and blood sugar tests, blood pressure, the list goes on. Everything everyone always associates with fat people, all of it was tested, and everything came back perfectly normal. I had a doctor literally say to me “If I hadn’t seen you in person, I would never have known you were overweight based on these results”, which just goes to show you how biased even doctors can be.

Warning: If you don’t wanna learn some interesting stuff about fertility and reproduction, don’t read any further.

So why am I trying IVF if I’m healthy?

Fun fact: When a woman talks about her “biological clock” ticking, it’s not even a joke; a woman’s biological clock is like a clock counting down from the moment she’s born… or maybe it’s more like an hourglass? Either way, unlike men, who can produce viable sperm from the time they hit puberty until the day they die, women have all the eggs they will every have in their entire life already tucked away in their tiny little ovaries from the moment they form as a fetus. That ovarian reserve starts at around 6-7 million follicles during the fetal stage, by the time that new baby girl is born that number has already dropped to 1 million, and by the time she hits puberty she’s only got about 300,000 left. Of those 300,000, only about 300-400 will be ovulated during her entire lifespan. That number obviously continues to decrease when a woman ovulates each month right up until they run out and that is when the woman will go through menopause, and there is no way to raise that amount either. Once the eggs run out, that’s it, there’s no more. Pretty grim huh?

By my age (35), a women with perfect reproductive health will have an AMH (Anti-Müllerian hormone, essentially an indicator of how many eggs you have) level of around 5.1 pmol/L (2.3 ng/mL) but for some reason, my ovaries seem to think I’m actually50. My AMH level is 0.3 pmol/L (0.1 ng/mL), which is considered EXTREMELY low and essentially what that means is I will never be able to conceive naturally. My only chance to conceive and carry my own biological child will be through IVF.

Now, it’s super important to note that low AMH has absolutely nothing to do with weight. There are a lot of different reasons that AMH levels can be low and they could be anything from hormone imbalance to a side effect of cancer treatments, from smoking to mumps. My hormones are normal, I’ve never had cancer or mumps, and I don’t smoke; in my case, it’s most likely due to constant and severe amounts of stress (like years and years of it). But seeing as there’s no medical way to test that, the cause of my low AMH has been deemed by my doctor as idiopathic (unknown). So while weight does have some affect on conceiving naturally, in my case it wouldn’t matter how much I weighed because my AMH level would still be low even if I wasn’t overweight.

In Australia, there are these wonderful things called Low Cost or Bulk Bill IVF clinics. At a private IVF clinic you’d be looking at about $10-15k (Aussie dollars) a cycle for IVF, but at a bulk bill clinic they can charge as little as $800! Unfortunately at these low cost clinics you’re not able to chose your doctor either, you just get whoever is available so that’s a problem too. But the way they’re able to keep costs low is a combination of Medicare rebates (Australia’s free health care system) and the fact that they don’t use full sedation during egg collection which costs a buttload of money because anesthetic. They use a combination of local anesthetic and twilight sedation, which means lower cost for the patient, it’s win win… unless you’re overweight. For reasons I have yet to figure out — because not a single clinic can come up with any reason every time I ask — most clinics demand you be under a certain weight before they’ll treat you. I’m not going to tell you my exact weight but it’s not anywhere near this stupid limit.

Another fun fact: This weight limit is non-existent in private clinics but I don’t have, nor could I get, $10-15k. The fertility specialist I spoke to yesterday also suggest bariatric (lap band) surgery as though that were an actual viable option. Like, listen lady, if I had the money for that (anywhere between $5-20k), don’t you think I would be using that to go to a fat-friendly private clinic instead of talking to your rude arse at a low cost clinic?!

This all brings me back to the TL;DR of it:

Here’s the problem I’m facing. A year ago when my AMH (egg supply) was tested it was 1.4 pmol/L (0.6 ng/mL), which was already very low then, but it’s dropped down to 0.3 pmol/L in a little over a year, so at that rate I’m going to run out of eggs and be hitting early menopause most likely before the end of the year. At 35 years old.

Merry Christmas to me.

This has nothing AT ALL to do with my weight but for some reason these IVF clinics have a weight limit and there is absolutely no way I can lose enough weight (safely and healthily) before I run out of eggs, hence why I’m so mad. Even if I had barbaric surgery it still wouldn’t be enough time! None of these stupid clinics give a shit about that, all they keep saying is “lose weight and then come back to us”, as though I have all the time in the world!

My only options now are to a) rob a bank and take my fat arse to a private clinic. b) rob a bank, get myself some bariatric surgery and take a buttload of speed to lose weight SUPER fast, and then take myself to a low cost clinic. c) rob a bank and use the money to buy a baby. Or d) continue to do as I’ve been doing and will continue to do regardless of what happens and that’s lose weight the safe and healthy way and run out of eggs while I’m at it.

Last fun fact of the post: All of this could have been avoided had my stupid GP tested my AMH levels 5 YEARS AGO when I asked him to! It would have been low then as well but not as low so I would have had more time AND back then I would have just scrapped in under the ridiculous weight limit!

/rant

#i'm sorry it's so long 🙁#nonsims #saviourhide #personal #Anonymous

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mysterious-prophetess · 4 years

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Top Five Academic and Publishing Scandals of the last Decade

So, I’ve seen people do stuff like this, a round up of sorts and the 2010′s were an insane decade to be alive.

So, I thought I’d compile my personal favorite publishing and academic scandals

Note: This will concern only things that were actually published or a scandal to do with Academia. The Rose Christo incident with the infamous fanfic didn’t have the biography make it to print so it’s right here as a Dishonorable Mention. No sources, because this was a home-grown tumblr disaster (much like Dashcon).

So,

#5 That Book that Used Scammy Tactics to Become a Best Seller Before Anyone Ever Even Read It.

Remember that time when Handbook for Mortals used shady tactics to make it look like it was selling better in pre-sales than it actually was? I barely remembered it, but then as I was adding in our Dishonorable Mention, I suddenly had the thought of “remember that...” so here it is at #5 since this book was actually published, and it was allegedly terrible. It has 3 stars on Amazon, but with its past, I can’t even trust that.

I didn’t read it. I had, and still have, better things to do than to read subpar fantasy that tried to be the next Hunger Games/Harry Potter/Divergent.

It turns out, if you have wealthy enough collaborators, or people who know how to game the system by which the NYT Bestsellers’ List operates, you too can buy and cheat your way onto that list with a terribly written book like these guys.

What’s even more ridiculous was there were already talks of a movie version and this unknown writer turned out to be, surprise, an actress too! And guess who’d be playing her own main character in the movie? The author! So, once this was unraveled as being a bulk-book-buying-cheat-tactic-to-get-on-the-NY Times-Bestseller-List, they lost their rank and were completely off the list. The movie is also toast, I think, since it would have come out in 2018. We’re now in 2020.

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#4: That time Bethesda Plagiarized Dungeons and Dragons.

That’s right folks. Bethesda, who cannot catch a break after their hilariously disastrous launch of their ongoing garbage fire, Fallout 76, were in trouble whenever they released a TTRPG module for an Elder Scrolls game that was suspiciously like a previously released Dungeons and Dragons adventure...because it was very much ripped off from the D&D book.

There were articles highlighting just how they did this and how blatant it was.

Some articles would do a side-by-side of huge chunks of the text and, yikes, that’s some obvious copy-pasting.

Suffice to say, they yanked this e-book down ASAP. (x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#3 That Time a Youtuber Turned Professional Games Media Editor Plagiarized for Most of His Career and Only Got Caught After He Plagiarized the Wrong Person on a Very Public Platform

So, yeah. There was a review last year for a game called Dead Cells (published by Motion Twin). On July 24, 2018 a smaller Youtube channel called Boomstick gaming would upload their review to the game. Then August 6th, IGN’s Nintendo editor would post “his” review up and Deadite from Boomstick Gaming, who was actually a fan of IGN, noticed a lot of eerie similarities between the reviews. He did a side-by-side video comparison (here) and it looks like a case of barely even changing the words around after copying someone else’s homework. As an English major, this is a clear-cut case of plagiarism. IGN agreed too, as did most of the internet. This reviewer had fans who still believe in him even after he’s been proven a plagiarist but, no accounting for taste am I right? And this would have been the end of it....had he just accepted his fate and just slunk off into the dark recesses of the internet.

But, then he had to provoke both Jason Schrier of Kotaku AND the Internet in a now deleted non-apology video to “looking as hard as you’re able, you won’t find anything.”

Yeah. That didn’t end well for him. So, people went digging and found a shitton of evidence he was a serial plagiarist. No shock to me, because plagiarism is never something a plagiarist ever does just “once.” He’d ripped off his fellow IGN reviewers as well as forum posts and articles from other publications. He also plagiarized a resume template. Now, when you use one of those, you’re SUPPOSED to mimic the style, put place your own information, right? Well, he didn’t even do that.

Link to YongYea, a youtuber who covered the topic in depth. He has his videos on the topic in a playlist. (x)

#2 The Professor Who P-Hacked His Results to Pieces

Now if you don’t know or remember who Professor Brian Wansink is, he’s a former faculty member at Cornell who rose to fame with his papers on nutrition and people’s eating habits. I’m still not entirely sure how a guy whose degrees were not in nutrition OR psychology ended up being the face of this field that seemed to have a lot more to do with nutrition and psychology, but here we are. His degrees were, in fact, a B.S. in business administration from Wayne State College, an M.A. in journalism and mass communication from Drake University, and a PhD in Marketing-Consumer behavior- from Stanford. In a move that one might call pure hubris or just complete and total social ignorance, he made a blog post that started to bring eyes on his work. Thanks to the efforts of other scientists (Like the Skeptical Scientist) and Heathers and Brown as well as the computer programs GRIM and GRIMMER, it was found the man who was cited over 200,000 times was a fraud. As of now 17 papers have been retracted and 15 have been corrected. He is no longer employed at all by Cornell, resigning a disgrace to his field and his former place of work.

The only reason he managed to get so big was he was able to make his so-called science digestible for the masses and able to give his works palatable titles. Ok, I’m done with the food puns. He was a superstar (even worked with the previous first lady on her health initiatives), which is why his fall is also meteoric. This is why you don’t torture your data into false positives, folks. Also, he’d target science journals that weren’t as prestigious and therefore wouldn’t have as rigorous a peer-editing process, allegedly.

His actions have brought thousands of papers into jeopardy and destabilized his whole entire field because nothing he did was reproducible and that’s already a huge problem in science.

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx) (X) (XX)

And.... now for the worst Academic Scandal of the 2010′s....

#1 The College Admission’s Scandal

Because despite Wasink’s damage to his field (because now there are literally thousands of papers who cited him in jeopardy), and two separate cases of Plagiarists on this list, I really can’t help but feel this has to be one of the biggest College/Academia scandals of ALL TIME. Sure, it’s old news now but I’m recapping it because that’s what this list is for. So, A bunch of wealthy people who wanted their children to go to prestigious universities wanted a guarantee that just buying a new wing for the library/science buildings/etc wouldn’t get them. You know, the normal way the super rich buy their children’s ways into schools. Instead, they went to this guy Singer whose group masqueraded as a charity (and that’s what got their asses nailed) and facilitated bribery, cheating, and deception. They caught one of these parents who’d gotten their children in with Singer’s plans for a different crime, and he offered to squeal on Singer and his plot for leniency with his other charges.

Singer’s plan usually involved bribing coaches to get these undeserving students recruited for sports teams (and therefore displacing an actual athlete who should have gotten their spot) as well as having people alter SAT scores and other deceptive actions.

It’s unknown if, at this time, any of these children of the 34 charged parents, actually managed to graduate with degrees from any of these institutions. However, those that had any of these students have to now decide what to do with them since these admissions are now verifiably fraudulent. Some are going to whole-sale kick them out or “cancel their admission” and others aren’t speaking up, and one has already decided the student gets to stay. Because they might not have known what their parents did, and its possible for the ones whose parents DIDN’T have them fake athleticism to not know what their mom and dad did. Hell, even most of the fake athletes might not have known thanks to reports of photo shopping their faces onto uniformed bodies. I do not know if any of these children were in on what their parents did, thought I suspect some might have been, but that’s merely speculation on my part. At the end of the day, it’s up to each affected university to carry out what they wish to do next.

The fact they made donations to a fake charity (and therefore skirted the tax man) are the reason they’re REALLY in deep shit. You don’t deny the IRS its money or the IRS will come for your blood. Just ask the ghost of Al Capone.

(x) (xx) (xxx)

So those are my top 5 Publishing and Academic Scandals of the past Decade.

#long #top five publishing and academic scandals of the past decade #2010s

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packhuntcr · 5 years

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☼ - appearance headcanon

Ahhhhhhh Jakey-boi. My walking contradiction.

Dude simultaneously cannot give a single solitary fuck… and is shockingly vain. Like let’s take a look at this little shit:

Credit to @hollandvalleythotpatrol for the photos. What would I do without Banni? Maybe she’ll write him for me next.

Handsome motherfucker. There’s a lot going on there. Like dude is scarred as fuck, obviously. Chemical burns, rashes [Gulf war syndrome, anyone?], dirty as all get out. Actually, that’s pretty fuckin’ clean for Jacob. I still insist his jeans would stand up on their own. But… lots of evidence Jacob doesn’t care about his appearance. Buuutttttt also a good bit of time invested into it as well. His beard’s trimmed, kept fairly neat. No ZZ-Top knock offs here. I’m 80% sure that’s dirt on his neck, not stubble. The same transfers over to Jacob’s hair. Shaved close, no peachfuzz stubble rising on the sides. Plainly, Jacob kept the military habits up {once he decided to live rather than wait to die}. Speaking of haircuts: Jacob’s pushing those army regulations.

“The hair on the top of the head must be neatly groomed and may not be trendy, spiky, or disheveled in appearance. The hair must be tapered and conform to the shape of the head, and the neckline must be tapered. Hair must not be allowed to fall over the ears or touch the collar (except that the taper at the neckline may extend past the collar).”

My Lieutenant Colonel at Fort Hood brother says he wouldn’t consider Jacob’s hair Army Regulation without a good trim [my brother’s also a hard ass and annoyed by me, so take that with a grain of salt and me hearing what I want to hear]. So Jacob’s gone a little rogue here. Neatly trimmed sides, maintaining the shape, but “too long on top”. Who can blame him? At 47 (presumably) he’s still got a nice, thick head of hair. Not a grey in sight. Buttt… if we look at his beard here:

It’s a bit patchier on this side, thinner where the scarring encroaches on the jaw. So it’s safe to assume that his scarred skin has been damaged to such a point that it doesn’t reliably grow hair. And let’s keep looking at that scarring. It extends up the temple and into the hairline.

This side:

–shows the same thing: scarring into the temple, a patch above the ear that looks to be a graze or more of that chemical burning. If the scars aren’t growing hair consistently, Jacob with a full head of hair is going to be patchy. And not receding hairline patchy, but inconsistent male pattern baldness patchy. Das es no bueno [ignore my bullshit German/Spanish hybrid. I’m tired and have to ramble to get this shit out onto the page]. Jacob’s vain–again once he decides to give a shit and participate in life. {and can you blame the handsome bastard. Even all scarred up he’s a looker] So he’s gonna cover this… or shave it off. But nooo not completely, Remember that full head of thick red hair? So does Jacob. He likes his red hair. He likes that he carries only a passing resemblance to their father. A father that was too uneducated and stubborn to realize that red is just a recessive gene and yes, Jacob is, in fact, Old Mad Seed’s child. But, Jacob enjoyed the fantasy that maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he wasn’t that sadistic old bastard’s git. So he likes the red hair the old man hates and keeps shaved close most of Jacob’s young life. He likes that he doesn’t quite fit in with the family. So he’s keeping the hair, even all these years later. Best of both worlds it is. Long on top where there’s minimal scarring, shaved away on the sides that would be patchy. Work what you got, boy.

Moving on!

Jacob’s god-awful clothes. Jesus. You bet your ass there’s more than one hole ripped in the crotch of those poor jeans. The man’s like a walking stress-tester for denim. I swear to god--I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again-- those jeans are so grime-coated and interwoven with sweat and dirt that Jacob could step out of them and they’d remain upright as if he hadn’t.

They’re ripped to fuck and then neatly patched. And it’ll just keep going. An endless cycle of clothing abuse until that article is so beat to hell and cobbled together that it’s but a ghost of the original. That’s pretty much his habit. Undoubtedly John purchased an abundance of clothes after they brought Jacob home like a puppy. And Jacob still has most of them: neatly folded, tags intact, tucked into a drawer somewhere in Saint Francis for when he needs them. He does this thing where he doesn’t keep more than two or three of each article of clothing. He also just doesn’t wear underwear because it’s a pain in the ass. Just enough clothing for a change, something to wear on the rare occasions he’s actually washing the other set or needs to be cleaned up quickly. As soon as something wears out beyond redemption, he grabs one single solitary replacement to throw into the rotation.

Part of it’s practicality-- using something as long as he possibly can, keeping things ready for a future need somewhere down the road. The man loathes excess and waste. Another part is that apathy that overcame him for years when he’d lost what he saw as his only purpose and the army declared him unfit for service. Meh, Jacob wants only to be clothed and doesn’t much care what in as long as it’s practical. The exception being his BDU jacket. He’s got an attachment to that, to the purpose he held while wearing it and how his service shaped his identity. Everything else? Fuck it. Jacob Seed will wear pink with purple polkadots... as long as it’s functional and blends in with the environment.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that Jacob’s got pretty shit posture, which I find surprising for a military man. The only exception is in two circumstances-

1. He’s on display. Think of him peacocking his way over to stand behind Joseph during the initial arrest. Dude is ramrod straight--also sexually, but we’re not going there today-- shoulders back, chin up, chest pushed out. Why? He’s got purpose. He’s there to protect, to intimidate, to lead his troops. So he’s going to present something worthy of that function, of the leadership.

The instant he’s out of sight? When he’s unwatched? Instant slope shoulders, watching the ground as he walks. Because there’s very little pride in himself, pride in Jacob Seed rather than The Soldier.

Look at him here, in front of the Deputy and Pratt:

Neither one much matters to Jake. Pratt’s a human squeaky toy to the man. The deputy’s a tool. No need to parade. No need to intimidate. Why bother? He doesn’t have to prove he’s above these two. He knows he is. To him, pea-cocking in front of those two would be like showing off for a leaf-blower. So he’s relaxed, shoulders not quite rounded, but certainly no military bearing.

Compared to here:

See the difference? Guess what: he’s working again, giving his ‘Cull the weak’ speech. Fuck, sorry, how far I’m scrolled down on the page is giving me an eyeful of thigh-holster... wow. Thank you, UbiSoft

Alright back on topic.

But Jacob’s working. He’s serving a purpose. His purpose. So he gives enough of a fuck to scrape together his pride and stand upright, project the image that Joseph and the Project need from him. He sure as shit won’t do it for himself.

Exception number 2. While holding a rifle. Which is really just more of the above. Blahblahblah purpose. Buuuttttt... there’s also a good bit of pride in that. Jacob grew up poor in the suburbs. Maybe there was an old family shotgun. Maybe. But, I very much doubt he ever had opportunity to use it [other than plans for Old Mad Seed the next time the bastard hit John]. Same goes for at the slave-labor foster family. If there’d been ready access to and familiarity with a weapon, you bet your ass Jacob would have shot the man rather than hit him with an axe handle. Sure as shit not getting hands on a weapon while in Juvie soooo the first time Jacob handles a firearm is in Basic.

And the kid’s shit with the fine arts. He’s absolutely dyslexic {More detail coming on that in the next HC post} and not inclined toward flowery things. But... he’s got math down. Understands geometry and physics quite easily. So understanding a sight picture is gonna come naturally. He’ll understand how to adjust that picture to compensate for drop, changes in elevation, weather, etc. So he’s already got the bones of a good shot. Pair that with shooting well is likely the first time this kid has heard any kind of praise? He’s gonna throw himself into it.

Every chance he has, Jacob is out there throwing hot lead down the range. For hours at a time, days on end. Surely he has a few favored weapons, but, for the most part, he’s got a handle on anything you throw his way. Natural talent plus dedicated practice and Jacob’s a terrifyingly good shot. An amry Expert Marksman badge good shot. Which means hitting 36-40 stationary and pop-up targets of 40 during qualification testing in supported prone, unsupported prone, and foxhole positions. Jacob got 39. Under pressure. I haven’t played the game (motion sickness can’t handle FPS), but I’m told that he outstrips Grace Armstrong, who was an Olympic medalist, as a GFH in terms of accuracy. Which very well may just come down to years of experience and the ability to practice daily. So the point of that long ramble isssss: he’s proud of himself with a rifle. It’s the only time he’s standing upright even without observation and not directly related to his purpose within the Project.

Everyone’s favorite Sasquatch for demonstration:

So the final thought I have, I’ve already touched on: Jacob’s gangling appearance. I’m just gonna link that here and then just run through the basics

Basically, Jacob is not meant to be a lean man. Look at the size of his hands compared to his forearms. Look that he’s basically a column from shoulder to hip. I mean, he was never going to be a Chris Evans Inverted Dorito, but dude should have a bit of tapering from shoulder to waist. He’s a man who had a good bit of bulk to him in his twenties and early thirties, a man who filled out the frame the genetic lottery threw his way (because John and Joseph don’t have the same shape as Jacob. They’re both built on lithe, tapering lines. It’s redhead, recessive gene, trial run Seed who only shares the blue eyes and a single freckle on the left nostril with John). Jacob is meant to be a big fucking boy. He’s made to carry broad shoulders and a powerful chest, strong arms. But look at him! He’s lanky, his bones are larger than the muscling on them. By the time we see him in Hope County, Jacob’s been out of the military since the mid- to late-nineties. In that time he’s experienced extreme muscle deterioration from damn near starving to death in the desert. Then he’s severely traumatized, obsessed with hoarding away food so he’s not eating what he should to gain back all that muscle lost. And he never will. That obsession with taking just enough, with keeping himself moving, but never indulging in excess. And bulking up requires excess. Maintaining that bulk requires excess. Jacob’s not the ‘I’ll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today’ type. He’s budgeting for the looming nuclear winter, for increases in population with decreasing resources. So Jacob stays skinny. Fed. Functional. Certainly no wilting flower... but, comparatively, skinny.

Soooo yeah. I’m petering out on the manic HC fest.

All photo credit to one Banni of @hollandvalleythotpatrol You’re a gem and I love you. The gif... I lost the original source. Someone not rushing to go to work can point me toward a source if they’re so inclined or it can wait until I get home and have time.

Next up are HCs on Jacob’s family and hobbies/quirks

#thehearsc #hc #[asks answered #headcanon

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authorincrisis · 6 years

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planning a story

Planning a story goes differently for all writers but is useful regardless of style. The plan and plot are the two main components of the skeleton of your tale (the characters being the heart) and go a long way when coming to write your story. An issue that many writers face today is that they know where they want to go by the end but not how they will get there. This is a reason why planning is an essential step before and during the process of accomplishing your goals. Whether you are a do-er or a thinker, this guide can come in handy and give your big idea a backbone.

Most people know the fundamental conflicts, characters, and goals of the story but cannot precisely grasp the ins and outs of their plan, missing out on some extraordinary plot twists and details that would otherwise be present if they had thought it through. Though a huge part of writing is the thought-dumping within it, we must make that those thoughts are comprehensible for others to read as well. We have to give ourselves motivation and a plan for how we will make them into a unified piece. Below are some neat tips and common sense that should be kept in mind when completing the plan.

Keeping A Journal/Notebook

Maintaining a physical copy of your thoughts is crucial when coming to plan. Whether it is noted on a laptop or scribbled on a napkin, you should have an account of what you were brewing in your mind that will help you later. No matter how insignificant or silly it may seem, you should write everything that comes to mind. I cannot tell you how many times I wished that I'd written down or remembered a small detail from before only to have it gone in an instant. Unfortunate, yes, but I learned to document because of it.

These things can include small excerpts, quotes, twists, ideas for characters, ideas for events, and pretty much anything else. The sky's really the limit here.

Have a Basic Sense of Your Story Before Your Plan

Super simple. Exposition, Conflict, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement. You know all of this but in case you forgot, I'll put a little summary underneath.

Exposition: Setting, main characters, foreshadowing (although it can be present all around), and an introduction. Who is your story going to be about? Where are they? Give us a taste of their personality before we begin so we can connect and anticipate what will happen next.

Conflict: What's the problem of the story? How does the character find this out? Is it that they won the lottery and don't know what to do with the money or are they held at gunpoint in a Chinese Resturant? This is the central conflict of the story, but there can be more mini ones later on, which we will find in rising action. (Note: it is possible to start your story with conflict, however, make sure to include the exposition as you go on and about)

Rising Action: How are your characters trying to achieve their goals? How did they develop and what did they learn? What were the hurdles along the way and how did it shape them to be the people that they are? If you are writing in mystery, be sure to mull this through. The rising action is the bulk of the story and should not be taken lightly.

Climax: Is it a plot twist? A grand revelation? The ultimate fight scene? In any scenario, it's the most intense bit, and we discover the results.

Falling action: everything from the climax and rising action coming into place. This is where you decide if the character has resolved the conflict or not and how things are settling down.

Denouement: Aftermath. An epilogue maybe. It goes hand in hand with the falling action and shouldn't be too long. It's basically just ending your story.

Point of View

How will you tell the story and how will that cater to your readers? First person or third person? Past tense or present tense? Remember, this depends solely on your preference and comfort, no one being better than the other. Though past tense with third person may be traditional, it is not out of date, the same for present tense with first person not being careless. Most readers don't judge stories based on this so leave it up to yourself to choose. You are writing your story, the one that you've worked so hard on so be comfortable with it!

So, this may have been pretty elementary but do not forget it! You must at the very least know these details and write them down in a place where you can expand on them later. Also, this is BEFORE you start to write. Yes, you can add on more (something I will be touching on in a short bit), and you can also keep notes at the bottom of your document, but this is the bare minimum. Do it, and you'll thank yourself later.

[For those who don't need to plan as much, feel free to scroll to the bottom for organization ideas. You can also, as I stated earlier, plan while you are writing your story. This can be found below]

So, we've finished the basics but for those of you wanting a more elaborate storyline, expand. The following are some methods of doing so.

Do Your Research

Is your story based on a real-life event or setting? If so, research! Find out how life is/was like there, if the area was large or small, highly populated or not. What are/were the norms? Please don't lay out every detail but rather, be aware of them, applying them to your character and plot when necessary. I mean, how will your character live otherwise? Although it's fiction, we can't have a man in the 1720s scrolling through Tinder now, can we? (unless that's your purpose, of course)

I know it may be a pain, but it's loads of help too! Trust yourself and go ahead.

Build Your World

Writing fantasy? Think it out! What is your universe like? The laws? The norms? I, personally, don't have too much experience in this area but I am sure that you can find a post or article that will highlight it. In fact, here you go!

Character Development

Where has your character come from? How did they get from A to B and what lessons did they learn to do so? What are your As and Bs? I'll put up a character development post soon enough, but for now, you can refer to this.

Details

What additional information do you need? Is it the placement of a can of beans that will be crucial later on or a slip in an antagonist's dialogue? Write notes as to how this will be important later in your story and why. Stick to the key events and let your writing do the rest.

DO NOT plan out your WHOLE story. Yes, chapter by chapter is okay, but not everything down to the T. Give yourself a break and space for your imagination to flow. Have boundaries but don't choke yourself.

Additional Components/Expanding

Character development, description, and dialogue do not necessarily have to be planned out as stated earlier but keep the main details in mind. Go back to the journal entries, go back to the research and merely expand. How will your story be better with a little tweak? What about this character? Those types of things.

Remember, with every action, there is a reaction. This is very important to consider when drawing up your plot. If you are aiming for a more realistic type of story, make something go wrong. Increase the stakes. Make your character's stakes evident. What are they willing to do? If it can go wrong, it will go wrong, and with writing fiction, there are many possibilities.

So, with all of that being said, you now have your plan! You know what will happen, how it will happen, and some other details too. But now, how will you organize your thoughts? Though some of you may be okay with going back and forth between pages and pages, others may want a bit more structure. Luckily, there are many different, and unique templates and systems that you can use that will fit with your story perfectly. Ranging from the basic Exposition - Denoument to a massive spreadsheet, there are many options to chose from. Simply, select the one that is best for you.

If you are more of a visual thinker, try a flowchart or mind map. If you like detailed, maybe go chapter by chapter. If you fiddle a lot while writing or like to feel things, try making your own storyboard. Not only will you now have a customized planner, but also more motivation to write. (I mean, if you came this far then surely you'd want to finish it?) And that's what it's about. Really making the story matter to you. Yeah, you may have a dozen other projects waiting in line, urging for you to start them but this way, you finally can sort out your priorities. You can finally work.

So, that wraps up planning for now. I've attached some useful links below that can help you further, but if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm always here and ready to help at every step of the way. I hope that I didn't miss anything too important, but if so, I can certainly post them later. Keep an eye out for updates and feel free to interact. With luck, this helped, but for now, it's all. Thank you for reading this far and have a great day!

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#writing #writers on tumblr #writing advice #improve your writing #writing tips #plot development #plot #plan #planning #planning your story

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maggiejulienne · 7 years

Text

2017 Midway Check-point and Writer Feelings

Hello, the internet!

2017 has undoubtedly been the best year of my entire life. It’s amazing what getting out of an emotionally abusive relationship can do for the mind, body, soul, and career! I highly, highly recommend it. I hear it’s a lovely time of year not to have been in one in the first place, but if that isn’t an option, telling him “boy, bye” is a excellent back-up plan.

So let’s re-re-re-re-re-rewind!

January

February- Asked to do a treatment for Someone Else’s Musical So I Can’t Tell You More which definitely went under the category of “labor of capitalism” rather than “labor of love,” but it was

March - Demo recorded for Musical Chairs.

April - Begin work on Monster Prom, an exciting new computer game, with one of my dearest school friends who I’ve known for more than a dozen years.

May- Ahhhhh! PRINCESS TEN TEN AND THE DARK SKIES workshop in my homeland of Southern California!!! This trip was a dreamdreamdream.

June - Back in New York! Hard at work on Invincible, Monster Prom, and did a lyric brush up for Someone Else’s Musical Screenplay So I Can’t Tell You More But It Was Fairytale-Themed And Therefore Awesome.

July - The toughest month so far - one of my best friends went through a lot of really hard stuff back-to-back and since she doesn’t have a great family support system I really heavily took that on emotionally trying to be there for her and help her in whatever way she needs - she 0% put any obligation on me, but that’s where my soul lies so it’s always gonna be what it is. That being said, she’s doing MUCH better now and we’re both so much happier for it. I finished the last piece of Invincible materials needed for the author to start pitching to producers, and am now good to set that aside until the next step, when- and what-ever that may be. I saw a whole slew of friends, Natasha, Ashleigh, Hannah, Katherine, Hallie, Zach, their friends, all multiple times within a very brief time-span, and that was great.

So to recap, that’s one short film with my lyrics (Smile), two pieces for a collection of one acts (Alcestis: A Tragiquilt), three musicals based on pre-existing material (Invincible, Musical Chairs, Princess Ten Ten and the Dark Skies), one movie adaptation of a preexisting work of mine, two brush-ups on other people’s scripts (shh! you’ll never know), one computer game (Monster Prom) and a partridge in a pear tree.

That’s NINE projects for other people in six months.

Holy kjahkjhkajehkehrh oh my goodness SO #blessed, so thrilled to be making my living as a writer, so happy to feel the validation that comes from having the same people hire you again and again because they like your work and they like who you are as a person and have them recommend you to others and you make new connections etc. It’s wonderful, truly, and it’s an amazing feeling and an amazing life.

Now. You will notice that conspicuously absent from the above are such phrases as “my original musical” “my screenplay” “my T.V. show”or “my novel.” And yet I have m-u-l-t-i-p-l-e of all of the above either finished or in-progress. Just in the past month or so when things were getting kind of “eh” in my personal life because of how much my friends were hurting and how deeply that affects me when it’s people I love, I really started missing my own work. Getting paid to write has been a double-edged sword in a way - it makes me feel more like a “real” writer in a very external, tangible way, it does that capitalism thing where I can feed and house myself, and it gives me hard deadlines and people to report to who believe in my work enough to have chosen me over everyone else. On the other hand, it gives me hard deadlines and people to report to who believe in my work enough to have chosen me over everyone else.

I haven’t stopped working on my own pieces during this time, and actually wrote my first-ever short film(s, two of them) since I’m starting to get anxious about getting my feature done and want to start making some kinda movie and it seems like all my friends have produced shorts at this point and YOLO. But I LOVE my feature so so so so much and it’s gotten almost exclusively positive feedback from everyone who’s read it, but hasn’t quite stuck the landing by finding the right person/place/thing with the right resources and the right opportunity at the right time. I may now have a production company for it but we still need to finding funding, and although it’s low-budget as far as feature films go ($500k-$1mil), it’s not exactly crowdfunding material. Mostly, with all these projects, especially the ones on strict timelines, I’ve started carving out time to make sure I’m continuing work on my Most Favorite Novel I’ve Started Since I Was An Adult, here after referred to as MFN.

Tonight, around 10:45/50ish, I got into bed to finish up some Monster Prom/Alcestis work before going to sleep (breaking my recently-instated rule of working on the couch in the living room and sleeping in bed, like a human, but hey). I was casually scrolling through Facebook when I saw an advertisement, inadvertently screamed, threw my phone across the room, curled up in a fetal position with my fists so tightly they hurt and yet I couldn’t unclench them, and sobbed myself to sleep.

WTF?! you ask (no, you don’t, I presume NO ONE will read this whole thing, but this is my e-journal, so I’mma post whatever I want)

I saw an advertisement for a book, the cover of which could easily be for MFN, and the title of which is one I have actually used at one point. I finally had returned to it and started actively scheduling ways to make sure I stayed on top of it, and someone had beaten me to the punch with a shocking level of specificity. There are a lot of things that make me feel strong feelings and my life is an emotional rollercoaster and I just don’t blog quite often enough to write about every single mood shift.

But I have literally never experienced a feeling quite like that in my 26+ years of being alive, and I didn’t know there were entirely new feelings left to feeling.

I’ve never been literally “paralyzed with emotion,” but that’s how it felt. As I said, I literally felt as if I could not loosen my fingers, could not move my knees from my chest, could not open my eyes. I just folded in on myself and fell asleep within minutes, something I haven’t done in weeks, because my body literally needed to shut off rather than deal with the emotional pain I felt of, in one picture and twenty-five words, feeling like a piece I have spent the past eight years working on had been rendered useless and defunct and - I’ve sat here struggling to think of a word to describe exactly what it was but the best I can come up with is - dead. And dead. It felt like MFN,this thing I love, was dead, had been killed by the unfairness of the universe that gave two creative souls the same thought and let one beat the other to the finish line.

What should make this less surprising to me is the fact that the darling young newlywed playwright assigned the Alcestis scene immediately after mine came up with - independently of me, having never met, never discussed the piece - almost the EXACT SAME premise and themes for his interpretation of the text.

(And this author’s book was published by the same publishing house that published my friend’s book that I was explaining to this gal I’m just starting to be friends with led to a kind of complicated dynamic with this other person da da da because of fucking COURSE it was)

Anyway it’s 6:51AM right now and I need to go to sleep so I can wake up and do the writing I’m being paid and/or asked to do rather than just writing about the writing I’m being paid and/or asked to do, so I’ll hafta fill in a few of the beats tomorrow but these are the bulk of my feelings and there’s just a lot of them lol. Mostly I hope that my current trajectory continues and maybe if my writing reaches a broader audience people can see these records of how I got there since we usually only see the sort of “overnight success” moments and miss all the work to get there.

So let the record show that for the first five years I lived in New York, I got a total of about four or five writing jobs, and now have had nine in the last seven months. I did a whole buncha acting in that time, but will soon be acting for the first time in a year and a half. So it took a long time of writing before people started asking me to write things on a (too???) regular basis, and now we’ll see how long it takes until people start asking me to write my own things and they’ll pay for them and let other people see them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XOXO

gossiprat

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ubercharge · 7 years

Text

i made an overwatch glossary and it’s absurdly long partially because my blog post size is small but also because there’s a lot of stuff in it so obviously i’m going to copy paste all of it under the cut of this post. if you’re on mobile i’m really REALLY sorry. just rotate your phone 90 degrees and do that really fast swiping thing.

i recommend reading them on my blog page because the formatting there makes it more legible (it’s bolded and stuff)

thank you to my friends for the help. i also referenced from the following list of similar resources so i could cover as many terms as possible. most of these are presented from my personal experience with and usage of them. because i wrote them myself and am a NA PC player, you might use different terms or use these terms a little differently.

google docs version (will not be actively updated, this page will be)

send me an ask if any of this information is incorrect or if you have anything to add. if it’s minor, make sure it’s still important and worth both our free time that i change it.

/r/Overwatch: Overwatch/Fps terminology

/r/Overwatch: How do you define what are cheese strategies and tactics?

/r/OverwatchUniversity: Difference between shotcalling and callouts?

/r/OverwatchUniversity: Intro to Competitive Overwatch: Terminology

/r/Competitiveoverwatch: Three Advantages Every Overwatch Player Should Know

Overwatch Gamepedia Wiki

Overwatch Wikia: Glossary

Overwatch Forums: Overwatch Jargon Dictionary

Furious Paul: Overwatch Terms

Gamecrate: Understanding Overwatch lingo

Kotaku: An Essential Glossary For Overwatch Players

———————————————————————————–

basics:

1K/2K/3K/4K/5K/6K/DOUBLE/TRIPLE/QUAD/PENTAKILL/SEXTUPLE = refers to multikills in whatever number (d.va got a sick 5k potm!)

1SHOT/ONESHOT/OHKO = (ohko = one-hit knockout) being eliminated in one shot, generally refers to elims from hog’s m1/m2, widow’s m1, and hanzo’s m1/scatter (e.g., i got oneshot by hanzo again). 2shot is the same thing except you got killed in 2 shots (bet that one was hard to figure out).

1V1/2V1/5V6/ETC. = refers to situations where someone is in a solo fight against one other person, two other enemies, etc. depending on the numbers (e.g., i can’t believe i won the 1v1 against hog as lucio)

2CP = the assault gamemode (2 capture points)

AIMBOT = s76’s tactical visor ult

AIRSHOT = a shot landed on an enemy in midair

ALT-FIRE = the secondary shot that some weapons can do (e.g., roadhog’s scrap gun). see m2/rmb.

AMP/AMPING = lucio’s amp it up, also used as a callout from lucio so the team is prepared for when he amps up speed (e.g., amping speed in 3)

ANIMATION CANCEL = using your melee attack to cut down the time of your reload animation

ANGRY MONKEY = winston using his primal rage. probably tossing your team around.

ANTI/BIO/MILK/PURPLE = refers to ana’s biotic grenade debuff effect which damages enemies and prevents them from being healed (antiheal)

ANY FUCKING SHIP NAME PORTMANTEAU, REALLY = used to refer to the presence of these heroes on a team. see pharmercy. other major combos that can be shortened to portmanteaus include anahardt/reinana and reapana. (e.g., they have mchanzo) when the combo has more of a focus on the ults than the heroes themselves, it may be referred to the ult combo name (scroll down for the ult combo section).

AoE = area of effect, refers to the area in which an ability can have an effect on or abilities with a radius (e.g., mei’s blizzard has a ridiculous aoe)

AREA CONTROL/DENIAL = an area that is dangerous to be in, preventing the enemy team from approaching or forcing them to approach from a certain direction, making them easier to deal with. bastions, turrets, certain ults, snipers, etc. can control/deny an area.

ARMOR = refers to torbjorn’s armor packs or to the type of yellow hp that some heroes have (armor takes less damage than regular hp)

ASSASSIN/PICK CLASS = refers to heroes who can oneshot or flank to get picks on enemies. generally, this more or less means genji, mccree, tracer, hanzo, widow, winston, roadhog, and pharah to a lesser extent.

AURA = a passively emanated ability from a hero in a specific AoE, lucio being the only hero with auras (speed and healing)

BABY D.VA = mechless d.va

BACKCAPPING/BACKDOORING = generally involves flanking where someone sneakily captures the objective while the rest of the team(s) is/are occupied elsewhere

BACKLINE = the area behind the bulk of the team, generally where healers and snipers are but also where divers go to disrupt the enemy team

BAITING = generally refers to trying to get the enemy to do something you want them to do, like use an ability/ult at an unfavourable time or getting into an unfavourable position (e.g., tracer baiting hog’s hook with her blinks so she can fight him without the threat of being hooked)

BALLS = can refer to symm’s photon projector m2 of energy balls, or zen’s various orbs (destruction, harmony, discord)

BEAM = zarya's m1 laser, mercy’s caduceus healing/damage beam, sometimes also refers to symm’s photon projector m1/her microwave

BEAT = lucio’s sound barrier. beat dropped = lucio ulted.

BM = bad manners, doing stuff like teabagging, saying thanks after killing an enemy, to a lesser extent using sprays (but the speech bubble sprays are generally seen as more rude/douchey), emoting. generally done as a boastful action.

BODY BLOCK = to block incoming damage with one’s person instead of a shield, wall, or some other type of more appropriate cover

BOMB = can refer to tracer’s pulse bomb, d.va's nuke, or junkrat’s grenades

BOOP = lucio’s secondary shot that knocks enemies back (can also be used to refer to lucio getting enviro kills like when booping enemies off a cliff), occasionally refers to pharah’s concussive blast

BOOSTED = refers to heroes who have been nanoboosted by ana

BOOSTING/BOOSTER = higher skilled players using accounts at lower skill levels to assist others, usually to higher SR in competitive.

BOOSTIO = nanoboosted lucio

BROKEN = refers to an ability/ult/hero/etc. that purportedly does not work as it should. a term jeff kaplan says has been ruined for him, thus he does not understand what the word means anymore. when he sees it, he takes it as a compliment.

BUBBLE/BUBBLING = zarya’s shield on herself or allies/zarya shielding self or allies (e.g., i need a bubble), alternatively refers to winston's shield

BUFF = refers to positive changes to a hero (e.g., increasing s76’s damage would be buffing him), also refers to positive status effects (e.g., mercy’s damage boost) or being healed (e.g., mercy can i get a buff?)

BUILDING ULT = actively building ultimate charge

BUNNYHOPPING/BHOPPING = admin he doing it sideways repeatedly jumping to gain some benefit, usually seen with heroes like symm with some strafing to make her harder to hit while she microwaves her targets, but also used by reins shielding/unshielding to move faster

BURST/BURST DAMAGE/SUSTAIN DAMAGE = burst is a lot of damage that is dealt all at once. sustained damage is dealt gradually and continuously over an extended period of time.

BURST/BURST FIRE = refers to firing a few bullets at a time as s76 or bastion to land more of them because their guns have recoil.

CAMPER/CAMPING = to stay in one spot, generally to control it and/or gain a tactical advantage over the enemy (a camper being someone who does this)

spawn camping = staying in the general area outside the enemy spawn and killing them as they come out, usually repeatedly

CAP/CAPPING = capture point/capturing the objective

CALL/CALLOUT = giving the team useful information (usually over team voice) about what the enemy is doing, their status, your ult charge, tactics, etc. (e.g., widow on catwalk, mercy’s lit, genji flanking left) - generally something everyone should be doing.

CARD = end of the game cards displayed after a game/match highlighting damage done, elims, etc. (e.g., when is dave ubercharge not on the point carding for objective time)

CARRY = generally when one player gets most of the kills, performs better than everyone else, doing most of the work and possibly compensating for the team’s shortcomings.

CAR/CART = payload

CAR WASH/KILLROOM = a room/small confined area in which symm has set up a bunch of turrets

CASTING = casting time is the time after abiliy use before it takes effect, or the total duration of the ability. some abilities take longer to cast (e.g., ana’s sleep dart requires her to bring her sidearm up before she actually fires the dart, genji’s casting time for his ult is 1s to unsheathe the blade and another 1s to sheathe it). casting also refers to providing live commentary on games/replays.

CC = crowd control, abilities that prevent enemies from moving/using their weapons/etc. (e.g., ana’s sleep dart, mccree’s flashbang, rein’s earthshatter)

CC/DPS/UTILITY ULT = refers to the different ult types, but the terms can also apply to abilities (e.g., genji's deflect is a dps/utility ability, mccree’s flash is a cc ability)

cc ult = crowd control, stops enemy movement (mei, rein, zarya)

dps ult = does damage (genji, mccree, pharah, reaper, s76, tracer, bastion, hanzo, junkrat, torbjorn, d.va, hog, winston i guess?)

utility ult = the other ones that provide some other kind of service (sombra, orisa, winston i guess?, ana, lucio, mercy, symm, zen)

additionally, defensive ult = ults that cushion damage (lucio, zen)

CD = cooldown, the length of time after an ability is used before it can be used again

CHALLENGE = when a player attempts to push/break a sight line controlled by an enemy where both are aware of each other. a successful challenge causes them to be tied-up or move, thus breaking their area control.

CHANNELED ABILITY/ULT = abilities that take place over time that can be activated by a click or require a button held down for the ability to continue being channeled (e.g., bastion’s self-repair, mccree’s deadeye, tracer’s recall, winston’s primal rage)

CHARGE = ultimate charge percentage, alternatively refers to zarya’s charge percentage

CHARGED = refers to when an ultimate is 100% charged and ready to be used. also see chargepin/pinned.

CHARGEPIN = refers to when rein has an enemy caught in his charge, or the kill from him pinning the enemy against a surface.

CHEESE = a strategy/team comp that requires low skill to pull off and/or negates skill advantage. generally, comps involving bastion, torb, symm, and mei are seen as cheesy.

CHIPSHOT/MEATSHOT = chipshots are shots that do little damage, generally because they’re from far away and damage falloff reduces the damage they do. also see trash damage. a meatshot is a single shot that does a lot of damage, possibly even being a final blow or oneshot.

CHOKE/CHOKEPOINT = a congested area of limited manoeuvrability that forces the teams together down a linear path, generally the primary entrances of a map (e.g., the hanamura chokepoint of the big wooden archway/door thing before point A), usually the size of rein’s shield. relates to positioning and map terminology.

CLUTCH = performance under pressure or a pressured situation (e.g., i got a clutch visor and totally gamesaved that match)

COMBO/WOMBO COMBO = a combination, usually of ults (e.g., zarya, go combo with pharah ult), and usually of a CC ult with a dps ult

COMM/TEAM COMM/TEAM VOICE = team voice chat (which you should join before every comp match)

CONTEST = to contest the objective by being on it

CORE/MAIN HEALER/TANK = the primary healer or tank doing most of the healing or tanking (generally ana, mercy, rein).

COUNTER/COUNTER PICK/HARD COUNTER/SOFT COUNTER = refers to heroes who are more effective against others (e.g., winston counters tracer and genji) and the act of being countered/countering (e.g., we need a reaper to counter their winston).

counter pick: choosing a hero specifically to deal with an enemy hero (e.g., picking winston to counter tracer and genji)

hard counter: a hard counter is a particularly strong counter with a larger advantage

soft counter: a counter with a small advantage

COUNTER ULT = to counter an ult with another (e.g., rein hammering to stop the enemy genji’s ult)

COVER = shit to hide behind/under/whatever. can be map structures, a shield, etc. (e.g., incoming nuke, get to cover)

CP = control point/capture point

CRIT/CRITICAL/CRITICAL SHOT = generally refers to critical hits (almost always headshots), can be used as a callout (e.g., mccree crit the mercy, she’s lit so finish her off)

CROUCHJUMP = to crouch while jumping, allows one to reach slightly higher places than with a normal jump

CtF = capture the flag, a gamemode that started with the lunar new year event ‘capture the rooster’ but is now an arcade gamemode

DAMAGE FALLOFF = refers to the distance in which a projectile/bullet does less damage due to the longer travel time before it connects with its target (e.g., d.va's m1, mccree’s gun, reaper’s guns, mei’s icicles, tracer’s guns)

DASH = genji’s swift strike

DASH RESET = refers to genji being immediately able to use his dash again after getting an elimination. dash is also reset after he casts his ult.

DEATHBALL = a team composition/gameplay style with a focus on the entire team staying grouped together and working with each other in general close proximity to win fights

DENIAL/SHUTDOWN = stopping an ult from working correctly or particularly in the case of the latter term, stopping it from working at all (e.g., ana sleep darting a mccree during deadeye stops his ult and is a shutdown - he also doesn’t get the charge back)

DEFLECT/REFLECT/PARRY = genji’s ability to send bullets/projectiles back at enemies

DISCORD/DISCORDED/ORBED = a callout term (usually from the zen) that zen has placed a discord orb on someone (e.g., lucio’s discorded, focus him)

DISRUPTION = breaking up a team’s positioning/game plan.

DIVE/DIVER = moving for the backline of the enemy team to disrupt them and usually to go after the healers who tend to hang behind the team. heroes who are good at diving have high mobility (generally genji, tracer, winston, d.va)

DIVE COMP = a composition in which the team is built around high mobility to push hard onto the enemy team (a dive comp will likely include most of the following heroes: genji, tracer, winston, d.va, lucio, mercy)

DOUBLE JUMP = jumping and jumping again midair, an ability only genji has

DPS/TANK/HEALER =

dps = damage per second, colloquially used in ow to refer to damage-dealing heroes. the term is a carryover from MMORPGs, and also refers to the measure of how much damage a player/hero/weapon does.

dps heroes = genji, mccree, pharah, reaper, s76, sombra, tracer, bastion, hanzo, junkrat, mei, torbjorn, widow, symm*

tanks = d.va, orisa, rein, hog, winston, zarya

healers = ana, lucio, mercy, symm, zen

*symm is a dps because she’s not a healer.

DRAWNAMURA/TEMPLE OF DRAWNUBIS/DRAWSKAYA INDUSTRIES = nicknames for hanamura, temple of anubis, and volskaya industries respectively due to the frequency of draws in matches played on these maps. as of late april 2017, a new system has been implemented to reduce draws.

DUO/TRIO/4STACK/5STACK/6STACK = refers to a group in whatever size

DUO QUEUEING/SOLO QUEUEING = queueing with a partner or a group of two/queueing alone

DRY PUSH/DRY RUN/ECONOMY PUSH = an attack push onto the enemy team without using ults to charge ults and possibly bait the enemy into using their ults. generally used on 2cp where having/not having ult is a major factor in whether or not teams win fights.

E = default pc bind for the heroes’ secondary abilities, refers to those abilities (e.g., mccree’s e is his flashbang)

EAT = d.va’s destruction of bullets/pellets/projectiles in her defence matrix. (e.g., holy shit d.va did you eat zarya’s ult?)

EDGE = a request from a mercy player as a shorthand for ‘go to the edge of the higher platform you’re standing on so i can fly to you’

ELIM/ELIMINATION/FRAG/KILL = elimination

ELO/MMR = (elo comes from the elo rating system, mmr = match making ratio) refers to a general skill level (e.g., players in this mmr are shit)

EXTEND/OVEREXTEND = generally involves pushing forward, possibly too far and putting one’s self in a dangerous position. overextending involves a lower chance of retreat and a high risk factor that can result in getting picked.

FACE TANK = the tank up front on the frontline, usually specializing in short-range engagements and pushing/contesting

FAN = usually refers to mccree's m2 (fan the hammer), but can also refer to genji’s m2 (fan of blades)

FALLING BACK/DISENGAGING = retreating (e.g., fall back before you get picked genji)

FEED = to allow enemies to rack up kills to charge their ults quicker (e.g., genji running solo into the enemy team and getting killed without doing anything himself is feeding)

FIGHT/ENGAGEMENT/TEAMFIGHT/ULT FIGHT = generally a period of time in which multiple elims are had from/between either team.

teamfight = involves most or all of both teams

ult fight = involves usage of ults (ult advantage, banking, and ult economy factor heavily into this)

FINAL BLOW = the last bit of damage dealt to finish off an enemy, it’s what shows up in the killfeed

FIRE POINTS = the fire bar is below the hp bar and it’ll fill up with playing objective, getting kills/assists, etc. when filled up quickly, the player will be on fire

FIRST/SECOND/LAST/ETC. = referring to the different capture points

FIRST BLOOD = the first kill in a game/match/round

FLANKING/FLANKER = to take an alternate route to the point/enemy team, a flanker is a player doing this either to get to the point, attack the enemy team or healers from behind/the side, pull attention away from the bulk of their team, harass the enemy, etc. flankers are usually genji, tracer, pharah, sombra, winston, d.va. don’t try to tell me reaper is a flanker. relates to positioning.

FLASH FAN/FLASH FAN ROLL/ETC. = mccree’s ability combos which allow him to cc and kill opponents

FLEX = people who can play multiple characters successfully (so not a onetrick/otp)

FLICK/FLICKSHOT = refers primarily to shots made by snipers (but can apply to others) where they aim quickly by flicking their crosshair and shooting. the other type of aiming is tracking.

FLY (TO) = mercy’s guardian angel (e.g., come back so i can fly to you). can also refer to pharah’s jump jet/hover and d.va’s boosters.

FOCUS/FOCUS FIRE = usually a callout to focus attack on one specific enemy to finish them off quickly (e.g., hog’s discorded, focus him)

FPS = first-person shooter or frames per second/framerate

FREEZE = mei’s blizzard or her m1 (endothermic blaster)

FRONTLINE = the front of the fray facing the enemy team, generally where you want your tanks to be

GAME = quickplay/arcade game

GAMESAVE = saving the game with a sick fucking play, generally entails multikills on overtime

GAMESENSE = ability to know and understand what is going on in the game/match as a whole, rather than only in your individual perception of it.

GG = good game

GG EZ = something you say when you want the chat system to make you sound silly

GLHF = good luck have fun

GREAT WALL OF CHINA = mei’s ice wall

GUN = generally refers to the weapons that are actually guns but nobody fucking cares to differentiate. every weapon is a gun. you think i’m gonna say ‘i’m gonna buy genji’s gold sword and shuriken’ instead of ‘i’m gonna buy genji’s gold gun’? fuck you. reaper’s shotguns? guns. tracer’s pulse pistols? guns. mei’s endothermic blaster? gun. d.va’s fusion cannons? guns. winston’s tesla cannon? gun. zarya’s particle cannon? gun. lucio’s marshmallow blaster? gun. zenyatta’s balls? guns. reinhardt’s hammer? gun.

HACK/HACKED = refers to sombra’s ability to hack players, rendering them unable to use abilities, also refers to hacked health packs which cannot be used by enemy players but regenerate faster for allies

HAMMER = reinhardt’s earthshatter, or reinhardt’s hammer/torbjorn’s hammer

HANDSOAP = hanzo

HANJO = bad hanzo

HARASSING = distracting and bothering the other team

HEADSHOT = critical shots on the head, which can be dealt by various weapons (e.g., mccree, bastion’s recon form, s76, widow, hanzo)

HEALER = the heroes who can regenerate allies' hp. primarily ana, lucio, mercy, and zen, but heroes like s76 and to a lesser extent sombra have healing capability. symmetra is not a fucking healer.

HERO RACING/HERO RUSHING/INSTALOCK = rushing to instantly lock in a hero before anyone else can. 'instalock’ generally also entails that the person does not have any intention of switching off of that hero (e.g., not another fucking genji instalock)

HIGH ENERGY/LOW ENERGY = when zarya has high/low charge with her particle cannon. a high energy zarya will melt you and she can easily laser pharahs out of the sky with some decent tracking.

HIGH GROUND = refers to elevated ground/platforms, generally seen as an advantageous area to be on/control as those on high ground can see more of the map, have an easier time shooting enemies below, can also back up to avoid enemy fire, are harder to hit (smaller hitbox) and can easily disengage. relates to positioning.

HIGH NOON = mccree’s deadeye

HIPSHOT = an unscoped ana m1 from her biotic rifle

HITSCAN = ranged attack without travel time, refers to weapons which hit what is within their crosshairs as soon as they are fired, or heroes who have these weapons (e.g., mccree, s76, ana’s scoped shots, widow’s scoped and unscoped shots). the alternate is projectile weapons/abilities/heroes.

HOOK/HOOKED = relates to hog’s hook, a hooked player is one that has been snagged by the hook. a callout relating to it can be 'hook down’.

HOVER/HOVERING = something that pharah can do besides flying, and something that mercy can do with her passive ability, angelic descent, that slows their fall. in the case of pharah, she can also gain altitude with her hover.

HP = hit points, regular hp refers to the white hp that everyone has, shield hp is the blue type that regenerates (can also be given by symm’s shield gen), armor is the yellow type that takes less damage than regular hp and shields (can also be given by torbjorn’s armor packs). alternatively refers to health packs

HPS = heals per second

ICE CUBE = mei in her cryo-freeze

ICICLE = refers to mei's m2 projectiles or her when she uses her cryo-freeze

JUSTICE = pharah’s barrage

K:D/K:A:D = kill to death ratio or kill/assist to death ratio. a 5:1 KD means the person got 5 kills for every 1 death. you generally want your KAD to be above 1, meaning you get more kills/assists than you die.

KILLFEED = the beautiful stream of information in the top right that tells you when who kills who else and how, also includes d.va’s mech destructions and desctruction of torb’s turret, symm’s shield gen, and symm’s tp

KILLSTREAK/KS = the number of kills made in one life

KNOCKBACK = refers to the stuff that knocks you back or the knocking back itself. i don’t know why i even bothered listing this; it seems pretty self-explanatory. (e.g., pharah’s conc blast, winston’s arm swings while ulting, hog’s ult) shit like orisa using fortify can prevent knockback.

KOTH = king of the hill, nickname for the control gamemode

LASER = zarya's m1

LEADING = aiming where the target will be, not where they are to compensate for projectiles’ travel time (e.g., zen needs to lead his shots to land them)

LEAVER = someone who leaves a match, usually in pregame or near the beginning of the match (this causes no sr adjustment for the other players, but is an inconvenience). can also refer to someone who leaves a match midgame. their slot in comp will not be filled and gives their team a disadvantage as they will have to play 5v6.

LIT/1HIT/ONE/WEAK = refers to a player with very low health who can be finished off with one hit, or has one 'bar’ of health left

LOS/SIGHTLINES = line of sight, refers to that which is visible (e.g., ana telling genji to get in her los so she can heal him)

MIDGAME = after pregame, when the game has started and is underway.

MULTIKILL = getting multiple kills at once or in rapid succession

M1/LMB = mouse 1/left mouse button, refers to heroes’ primary fire

M2/RMB = mouse 2/right mouse button, refers to heroes’ alt fire

MAIN = the hero that someone plays the most (some consider several heroes to be their mains as they play all those heroes often)

MATCH = competitive match

MECH = d.va’s MEKA

MEGA = large health pack

MELEE = when you hit the people with your gun instead of shooting them with the gun

MELT = that shit when you get killed real fast (e.g., their bastion fucking melted me)

META = most effective tactic available, usually used to refer to the most used/successful team composition at the current moment (e.g., the s3 meta involved multiple tanks on a team), changes with balances and hero additions

MICROWAVE = symm's m1/lmb, which can ramp up to do some very high dps

MID = middle route of a map

MONKEY/HARAMBE = winston

NERF = refers to negative changes to a hero (e.g., reducing mccree’s damage would be nerfing him), alternatively refers to d.va’s ult

NOSCOPE = an unscoped kill

NUKE = d.va’s ult

NUMERICAL ADVANTAGE/NUMBERS GAME = the team with more members alive is the one with the numerical advantage. generally, the team with this advantage will win fights more easily (but factors such as ult advantage and positioning also factor into this)

OFF-TANK/OT = generally refers to non-reinhardt tanks

ON FIRE = when someone is accumulating a lot of fire points at once, generally because of multikills (or a good rez)

ONETRICK/OTP = one trick pony, refers to someone who can only play one hero well

PASSIVE = an effect/ability that is granted without the player having to activate anything (e.g., junk will automatically drop bombs upon death as a part of his passive, total mayhem)

PAYLOAD = refers to the payload/cart or the escort gamemode. usually also used to refer to the hybrid gamemode because it involves pushing the payload/car after the point is captured.

PEASHOOTER = d.va/mercy’s pistols

PEEK = generally refers to getting into the enemy’s line of sight (e.g., mercy don’t peek the corner, the enemy widow’s watching)

PEEL = to take care of a flanker that is harrassing, usually attacking your healer (e.g., winston can you peel the tracer off zen?)

PERCH = a good spot to snipe from with good sightlines and almost always on high ground

PHARMERCY = refers to the pharah/mercy combo, generally involves the mercy pocketing or at least keeping a close eye on the pharah

PHASE(S) = refers to different parts of the same game/match (e.g., streets phase, hangar phase referring to different points, payloads, and parts of the map)

PLAY = generally refers to some cool/helpful shit someone did, such as a gamesave ult, a multikill, or a high impact play like ana sleeping the boosted ulting enemy hog to save her team from the damage

PICK = to kill a single player, usually a squishy and ideally a healer. (e.g., widow got a pick let’s rush the point, our mercy got picked so back up). a critical pick/good pick/impactful pick is a pick on an important hero (e.g., mercy). usually of strategic importance. alternatively refers to your hero choice (e.g., he picked bastion)

PIN/PINNED = what rein can do to enemies who are caught in his charge. also see chargepin.

PING/PNG = the connection in milliseconds from you and the server, you probably want a low ping

POCKET/POCKETING = when someone (generally mercy) focuses on healing/buffing/helping one other player. the pocket is the target of this attention. (e.g., mercy’s pocketing pharah so she’s fucking unkillable)

POCKET MERCY = a mercy attached almost exclusively or exclusively to one player instead of healing the whole team.

POKE = refers to 'poking’ at the enemy team, doing little damage, not pushing, generally at/around the chokepoint

POINT = the objective

POP/POPPING ULT = unintentional use of an ult, or being forced to use ult at an unfavourable time. see wasting/whiffing ult. (e.g., i popped their zen, zarya get ready to grav)

POSITION/POSITIONING = where one is in relation to their team, the enemy, and other map elements like cover and health packs. being out of position can be very dangerous (e.g., a healer overextending is more easily killed and not protected like a healer in the backline)

PREGAME/SETUP = the period of time before the game starts

PREMADE = a premade group

PRO GENJI = usually used as a joke (oftentimes an insulting one) to refer to an embarrassingly bad genji, but can also refer to a terrifyingly good genji (e.g., they have an actual pro genji, someone go winston to counter him)

PROJECTILE = ranged attack with travel time unlike hitscan bullets (e.g., genji’s shuriken, pharah’s rockets, mercy’s pistol). linear projectiles travel in a straight line (e.g., ana’s sleep dart), arc projectiles travel in an arc (e.g., ana’s biotic grenade).

PuG/PICKUP GROUP = a group formed by randomly selected people whom you don’t know, generally around your mmr

PUSH = a coordinated attack with the team, generally towards the objective

PUSHING/ENGAGING = advancing

PvE = player versus environment, a specific gamemode that has only been seen with events so far where players fight computer-controlled enemies

Q = ultimate ability

QUICKSCOPE/QUICKSCOPING = quickly scoping in to land a shot, generally involves flicking

RAGDOLL = the floppy corpse left behind after someone dies

RANDOS/RANDOMS = refers to the players, generally on your team, who aren’t in your group

RANGE (MID/LONG/SHORT/MELEE) = refers to distance needed to successfully harm the opponent.

RECOIL = guns have less accuracy the longer the trigger is held down. burst fire increases accuracy at long ranges. the only guns with recoil in ow are s76’s pulse rifle and bastion’s recon submachine gun.

RECON = bastion’s recon form

REGROUP = to group up with the team again, generally after losing a fight/teamfight (being staggered, being wiped)

REROLL = committing deliberate environmental suicide in mystery heroes to get another hero, ideally one that works with the team comp better

RESET = committing deliberate environmental suicide so as to regroup with the rest of the team so as not to be staggered or feed enemy ult charge

ROAMING = a solo playstyle not attached to the rest of the team, not sure if it’s much different from flanking

ROCKET/MINE/STICKY/BOMB JUMP = pharah/junkrat/s76 launching themself up from their own explosion. unnecessary for pharah, as she has her jump jet.

ROLL/STEAMROLL = 'roll’ can refer to mccree’s combat roll ability. 'roll’ and 'steamroll’ refer to 'being rolled’, meaning being crushed by the other team, generally because the other team is of higher skill or simply performing better (e.g., we got rolled on hanamura)

S1/S2/S3/ETC. = competitive season 1, season 2, etc.

SCRIM = scrimmage, a practice match between two groups/teams.

SELF-DAMAGE = refers to heroes/weapons that can damage the user (e.g., pharah’s rockets, s76’s helix)

SELF-HEAL = refers to heroes who can heal themselves (or the process of regenerating hp), or mercy’s ability to regenerate hp. can also refer to hog and s76’s self-heal.

SENTRY = torbjorn’s turret or symm’s sentries, alternatively bastion’s sentry form

SR/RANK = skill rating, generally refers to competitive rank but can also refer to general skill level

SHIFT = heroes’ first ability that is bound to left shift by default on pc

SHIELD = can refer to barriers (e.g., rein’s shield, winston’s bubble, orisa’s barrer), to symm’s shields from her shield generator, or to the blue hp some heroes (symm, zarya, zen) have as part of their hp that regenerates slowly after being damaged

SHOTCALLING = the role of a shotcaller is generally taken by a healer or tank as they can see what’s going on. they make calls to the team to direct them on what they should do next (e.g., widow discorded - winston go after her, use grav and blade this fight and save other ults)

SKIRMISH = you can choose to turn these on (or off) so that while queueing for a game, you can be put into a lobby while still queueing for a game. gives a chance to explore the map, different abilities, and say hello to other random players (or to kill them). occasionally shortened to scrim, but these are different terms.

SLEEP/SLEPT = refers to someone who has been sleep darted by ana or ana sleeping someone (e.g., mccree’s slept to the left)

SMALL = small health pack

SMG = widow’s unscoped m1 (it’s not an smg)

SMURF/SMURFING = not interchangeable with boosting, but relates to it. refers to those who play on accounts (called smurfs/smurf accounts) that are lower levelled/lower skill level than their main.

SNIPER = hanzo, widowmaker, and ana, but generally refers to hanzo and widow due to their threatening ability to headshot/crit

SNIPER/SENTRY NEST = an area controlled by a sniper/torb (and to a lesser extent, symm)

SNOWBALL = when that fuckshit happens and it continues to get better/wose (e.g., our shitty ult usage snowballed into us losing the game)

SONAR = nickname for hanzo’s sonic arrow or refers to its effect.

SPAM = relates to suppressing fire, but with the added connotation of there being a lot of it. generally refers to junk bombs, pharah rockets, and other projectiles, especially if there’s multiple stuff coming at once.

SPAWN/RESPAWN = refers to the spawn area or the time before someone respawns (e.g., respawn in 5)

SPLASH/SPLASH DAMAGE = generally refers to weapons/projectiles that can do damage to several enemies (e.g., pharah’s rockets, s76’s helix, junk’s grenades, mine, and rip-tire)

SPREAD/BULLET SPREAD/WEAPON SPREAD = refers to the area within which a weapon’s bullets/pellets may land. (weapons with spread include reaper’s shotguns, d.va’s fusion cannons, and torbjorn’s rivet gun alt fire)

SQUISHY = refers to heroes with 200 hp or less

STACKING/STACK = playing more than one hero on a team, alternatively refers to a group

STAGGER/SPLIT SPAWN = kills that are made on one team at different times, can be done intentionally to delay their regroup

STALL = to contest the objective to give your team more time to get back to it, generally involves stuff like d.va (a lot of hp, still alive after mech is destroyed, manoeuvrability) or other tanks, mei (ice block), reaper (wraith form), tracer (blinks), lucio (hard to kill), genji (hard to hit)

STRAFING/CIRCLE STRAFING = moving from side to side. circle strafing involves manoeuvring around an enemy to constantly break their LoS while keeping yours.

STICK/STUCK = refers to tracer having stuck her pulse bomb to an enemy

SUPPRESSING FIRE = firing towards an area and not necessarily an enemy (relates to area control/denial), prevents/deters enemies from moving into position as they try to avoid being hit

SUSTAIN = refers to one’s survivability, alternatively refers to sustain damage.

SWITCH = refers to hero switching (something you should do when you're countered, also used to call when enemies switch)

TAGGED = when one has damaged but not finished off an enemy, ideally means the target has been damaged a lot (in which case the attacker might want to make a callout to their team about it) but not necessarily

TAXI = lucio going back to pick up respawning players with speedboost

TBAGGING/TEABAGGING = crouching repeatedly, generally over an enemy ragdoll after killing them, on top of a spray, or within an enemy killcam so they see you BMing

TEAM COMPOSITION/TEAM COMP/COMPOSITION = the range of heroes picked and how well they work with each other (e.g., a bad team comp would be 6 dps with no healer or tank)

TEAMKILL/TK/WIPE = when the entire team is killed, wipe generally means they were all destroyed at once and not staggered

TIE/TIE-UP = targeting a specific player to prevent them from doing their job (e.g., accosting a rein from behind so he’s forced to drop his shield to engage)

TILT/TILTING/ON TILT = refers to a player being angry/frustrated and in a bad state of mind, generally also refers to this lowering the quality of their gameplay (e.g., we lost the match because our genji got tilted by being countered so hard)

THROW/THROWING = to put deliberate effort into losing the game (e.g., the enemy torbjorn’s throwing by jumping off the cliff every spawn)

TOBLERONE = torbjorn

TOXIC = behaviour involving things like being shitty in chat, calling teammates names, being exceptionally rude, etc. generally not good for the team or lobby as a whole. being toxic can tilt other players, and toxic players are usually tilted (or douchebags).

TP = shorthand for symm’s teleporter but also used to refer to sombra’s translocator and reaper’s shadow step

TRACKING = a type of aiming where you follow what you’re shooting. flicking is the other type.

TRASH DAMAGE = non-killing damage, possibly coming from spam, that is seen as feeding enemy healers’ ult charge. some only count damage as trash damage if one is outputting it after they have already charged their ult. a term that was more major in s3, when ana was the absolute core healer and ult was pretty fucking nuts as it provided a speedboost to the target.

TRICKLING = when players run into the enemy team/onto the point one by one instead of together, generally results in them getting picked off but is also necessary to contest and extend overtime in some situations

TRYHARD = somebody who is putting much more effort into winning the game/getting kills than having fun, used as an insult along the lines of 'this person is taking the game too seriously’

TURRET = torbjorn’s turret

ULT ADVANTAGE = having the advantage over the other team, usually by having more ults (but can also include having ults that combo)

ULT ECONOMY = a term that pertains to ultimate management, keeping an eye on ally and enemy ults, and ult conservation/usage. good ult management includes knowing when to use and combo ults, not using ults after a fight is won or when the team has a numerical advantage (and thus can finish off remaining enemies with numbers alone), etc.

ULT STACK/BANKING = conserving ults to later use them all at the same time in a single coordinated assault. also a strategy for situations in which the team has little time to take the objective, so they charge and save their ults for a final successful push.

VAPE = hog’s take a breather/self-heal

WALLS/WALLHACKS = refers to widow’s ult (e.g., they have walls), though hanzo’s sonic arrow and sombra’s passive ability, opportunist, can also see enemies through walls (the latter only effective if enemies are critically injured)

WALLCLIMB = a passive ability that both hanzo and genji have, allowing them to climb up walls. hanzos can use it to find a new perch on high ground and genjis can use it to help them flank.

WALLRIDE = a passive ability that lucio has, allowing him to ride horizontally along walls and other surfaces. he can use this to disengage, get to high ground, etc.

WASD = these are the keys you can hit to escape d.va’s ult.

WASTING/WHIFFING ULT = using ult ineffectively, being counter ulted, being denied, etc.

XBOX = genji

ZAP = winston’s m1 (tesla cannon)

ZONING = that shit you do to make your enemies go to specific places (e.g., mccree’s ult can be used as a zoning tool to force enemies away from the objective, not necessarily just to secure kills)

———————————————————————————–

check out these map callouts for more details.

Sp0h’s Map Callouts on Overbuff:

Hanamura

Volskaya Industries

Route 66

Hollywood

King’s Row

King’s Row Callouts:

Hanamura

Temple of Anubis

Dorado

Route 66

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Numbani (this is Sp0h’s, though it doesn’t appear to be on Overbuff)

other:

Eichenwalde (/r/Competitiveoverwatch)

map terminology:

ARCH/ARCHWAY = yup

BALCONY = high ground platform

BLUE/YELLOW/ETC. = refers to buildings of those colours.

BRIDGE = guess

BUILDING = everything is either a building, room, or catwalk.

CATWALK = generally refers to high ground that is a long, thin path

HORSESHOE = a c-shaped area

CAVE = a fucking cave what more do you want

HUT = shit like the hut thing before hanamura point b with the mega in it and other open-ish small building type things.

LIFT = the moving platforms on volskaya point b and route 66 last.

LONG/SHORT = refers to long or short paths

MID = middle. the middle of the map (control point on koth maps, or the largest/central path on the other maps)

PATH = not to be confused with mid, these refer to alternate path types. can be used for flanking and backcapping.

some path types that differ depending on which map you’re talking about include: access, alley, district, halls, lane, pit, stairway, walkway

PERCH = a good spot to snipe from with good sightlines and almost always on high ground. see roof.

PORCH = generally a more open area/platform

ROOF = it’s a roof. see high ground in the basics section above.

ROOM = everything is either a building, room, or catwalk. also see car wash/killroom in the basics section.

some room types that differ depending on which map you’re talking about include: café, closet, courthouse, gas, hotel, patio, pub, shop, storage

WINDOW = a window

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ult combos: (basically just put 'grav’ before the other ult or 'nano’ before the hero’s name/ult and you have a combo name)

BEYBLADE = nanoboosted reaper using his death blossom, prominent in the s2 meta

GRAV BLADE = genji blade x zarya grav

GRAV STRIKE = hanzo strike x zarya grav

GRAV DRAGON(S) = either/both shimada ult(s) x zarya grav

GRAV BARRAGE/ROCKETS = pharah barrage x zarya grav

GRAV STRIKE = hanzo launching his graviton in zarya’s

GRAV BLOSSOM = reaper blossom x zarya grav

GRAV BOMB = tracer/d.va bomb x zarya grav

GRAV EMP = sombra emp x zarya grav

GRAV HAMMER = rein hammer x zarya grav

GRAV NERF/GRAV NUKE = d.va nuke x zarya grav

GRAV NOON = mccree high noon x zarya grav

MEAT GRINDER = hog ult x zarya grav

NANOBARRAGE = nanoboosted pharah using barrage (i don’t recommend it but it does increase her survivability and she’s vulnerable during her ult)

NANOBLADE = nanoboosted genji using blade

NANOHAMMER = nanoboosted rein using hammer. there’s probably a less stupid name for it.

NANONOON = do people even do this anymore? nanoboosted mccree using high noon, which allows him to lock onto targets faster. mccree was the prime boost target in the pve gamemode junkenstein’s revenge.

NANOTANK = nanoboosted bastion using configuration: tank.

NANOVISOR = nanoboosted s76 using visor

honourable mentions:

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT FUCK THIS SHIT I FUCKING HATE THIS GAME = when ana accidentally boosts someone who should not be receiving boost. see boostio in the basics section.

OH SHIT THAT FUCKER CAN AIM = when the enemy ana boosts the sniper and you’re laughing but then you get flickshot

THE MICROWAVE OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION = nanoboosted symm

———————————————————————————–

shortened terms:

½/A/B = point 1, 2, a, b

BIO/BIOBOMB/BIONADE = ana’s biotic grenade

BIO/BIOFIELD = s76’s biotic field

BLADE = genji’s dragonblade

BLASTER = d.va or mercy’s pistols

CHOKE = chokepoint

COMP = competitive gamemode or team composition

CONC/CONC BLAST = pharah’s concussive blast

DART = ana’s sleep dart

DIA = diamond competitive tier

DISC = zenyatta’s discord orb. not to be confused with the chat client.

DRAGONS/WOLVES = hanzo’s dragonstrike or its legendary reskin, wolves. wolfstrike? (e.g., incoming wolves get out of the fucking way)

DRUM = orisa’s supercharger

ELIM(S) = elimination(s)

ENVIRO = environmental (generally used to refer to environmental kills like lucio booping enemies off a ledge)

FAN/FtH = mccree’s m2 (fan the hammer)

FLASH = mccree’s flashbang

GM = grandmaster competitive tier

GRAV/GRAVITON = zarya’s graviton surge

HELIX = s76’s helix rocket

HOG = roadhog

INVIS = invisibility

INVULN = invulnerability/invincibility

JUNK/RAT = junkrat

MATRIX = d.va’s defence matrix

MINE = junkrat’s concussive mine

MYS./MYS. HEROES = mystery heroes, arcade gamemode

NADE(S) = junkrat’s grenade(s)

OBJ = objective

ORBS = zenyatta’s harmony and discord orbs

PISTOL = generatlly, d.va or mercy’s pistols, though heroes like tracer have pistols as weapons

PLAT = platinum competitive tier

PORTER/TP = teleporter

POTG = play of the game

POTM = play of the match

Q = queue

QP = quickplay

REGEN = regeneration, generally refers to self-recovery of hp or shields

REIN = reinhardt

REZ = mercy’s resurrection

SCATTER = hanzo’s scatter arrow, also refers to kills from it (e.g., i got scattered)

SIGHTS = s76’s tactical visor or widow’s infrasight

SHATTER = rein’s earthshatter

SHIELD GEN = symmetra’s shield generator

SOULS = soul globes, something that people are confused that mei drops

STRAT = strategy

SYMM = symmetra

TAC/TAC VISOR/VISOR = s76’s tactical visor

TANK = ulting bastion (bastion’s configuration: tank) or the tank heroes

TIRE = junkrat’s rip-tire

TORB = torbjorn

TRANS = zenyatta’s transcendence

TRAP = junkrat’s steel trap

ULT = ultimate

VOLLEY = zenyatta’s orb volley (charged m2 shot)

WIDOW/WM = widowmaker

ZEN = zenyatta

#dave.txt #overwatch #mine #ughfghf i should xpost this to reddit but im lazy

41 notes · View notes

josephlrushing · 4 years

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LG V60 ThinQ with Dual ScreenReview: It Might Not Be Mr. Right, but It Could Be Mr. Right Now

The first device to offer an optional LG Dual Screen case was the LG V50 ThinQ, which was soon followed by the LG G8X ThinQ. While I liked what LG was trying to do by adding the optional second display to both of those earlier models, it wasn’t until the LG V60 ThinQ with Dual Screen — mixed with the crazy times that we are living in — that it all finally made sense.

Let’s be clear, even on the more pocketable LG V50 ThinQ and G8X ThinQ smartphones, the addition of the Dual Screen case made for a device that was at all times a bit bulky and heavier than normal. The LG V60 ThinQ on its own starts as a super-sized device; at first glance, it would seem that putting a Dual Screen case on such a large phone would result in a veritable brick. Well, it is but it isn’t, and right now the size is just fine with me.

The LG V60 ThinQ

Maybe it’s because — other than weekly grocery and post office runs — I’ve been isolating in my home since March 9th, but pocketability and portability just haven’t seemed particularly important these days. Much more desirable? A large, bright screen and a fast processor — both of which are present in the LG V60 ThinQ.

Included in the box are the V60 ThinQ smartphone, a microfiber cloth, a USB Type-C to Type-C charging cable, a wall charger, a SIM tool, a quick start guide, and a product safety and warranty information booklet.

On its own, the LG V60 ThinQ measures approximately 6.7″ tall by 3.1″ wide by 0.35″ thick, and it weighs 7.6 ounces; it other words, it’s a beast. The display features a 6.8” OLED FHD+ with Cinematic FullVision, 2460×1080 resolution, and a 20.5:9 aspect ratio. The phone’s body is composed of Gorilla Glass 6 on the back with a Gorilla Glass 5 display on the front; a gold-colored aluminum frame wraps around all of the sides. The phone feels solid in hand; while its edges from the top appear steeply vertical, the glass on the back is curved so that you won’t have sharp edges digging into your palm when you’re holding it.

Although the V60 ThinQ is on the larger side, it manages to not feel too unwieldy. The display has a very thin ~1.2″ long speaker embedded in its center top. Directly under that, there is a punch-hole camera; otherwise, it’s just a big slab of glass. The front display has slightly beveled, 2.5D glass. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer a flatter screen like the one on the V60 ThinQ versus one of the curvier 3D glass displays. On the left side of the phone, there is a microphone, the volume buttons, and a dedicated Google Assistant button that seems largely superfluous since you can’t reassign it and you can access the assistance by swiping up from either bottom corner or saying “hey, Google …”.

On the bottom of the V60 ThinQ, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C port, a microphone, and a speaker. The headphone jack seems like a bit of a throw-back at this point, but LG has really stayed vigilant with its support for those who prefer wireless headphones. LG continues to support its Hi-Fi Quad-DAC features that can only work with wired headphones, and the digital-to-audio converter (DAC) produces a rich and immersive music audio experience. I’m pretty sure that the V60 ThinQ is the only current flagship still offering a headphones jack, so if you care for wired headphones over wireless, this is the phone for you. Since I’ve been sheltering in place for the last two months, I have been able to rediscover the joy of using some of my nicer wired headphones with this phone; so in its own little way, the V60 ThinQ has managed to spark joy in a trying time.

On the right side of the phone, there is a power button. Okay, I have a quibble … if I were designing my perfect phone, I would have the power button on the right side with the volume buttons directly above or below. I realize that this is a personal preference, but it really makes sense when the Dual Screen case is on the phone, as we’ll discuss later.

At the top of the phone, there is a microphone and a combination of SIM and microSD memory card tray.

In most markets, you can get the V60 ThinQ in either Classy Blue or Classy White. The blue combined with the gold trim is surprisingly pretty, and it’s too bad almost everyone will either keep theirs hidden in the Dual Screen case. Even though the v60 is MIL-STD 810G tested, with so much glass exposed it would be prudent to also keep a slim case on hand for times when you’re not using the Dual Screen case. You can see the full specs for the LG V60 ThinQ here.

On the back, you’ll find the rear camera array lined in a single row, similar in appearance to the Samsung Galaxy S10. Most phones seem to be moving to a square or rectangle camera array shape; I don’t have a real preference, but some might see a row array as dated. The rear cameras include a 64-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera, and a time-of-flight sensor for depth and 3D photo features. As you can see, the back is a huge slab of glass; the V60 is prone to showing fingerprints and random smears. If it’s covered in a case, you won’t even notice, but you’ll be glad for that included microfiber cloth when you are carrying it naked.

The Display

Take a look at these photos and tell me if you see any obvious deal-breakers? Some might not like the black bezels around the V60 ThinQ’s screen; the bezels measure approximately 3mm on the sides, 4mm on the top, and 7mm at the bottom. The 10-megapixel front-facing camera is just a hole-punch design, so there are obviously not multiple cameras or sensors present. It’s also worth mentioning that unlike many other phones, the LG does not offer face unlock security; your options are swipe to unlock, using a pattern, using a numeric PIN, entering a password, and in-display fingerprint scanning (which works very well). One last thing that might be a deal-breaker is the V60 ThinQ screen’s refresh rate. If you’re used to using a phone with a 90Hz or 120Hz screen (like a newer OnePlus, Pixel, or Samsung flagship), you might notice that the scrolling isn’t quite as smooth. If you haven’t been regularly using a device with a higher refresh rate, or if you are able to appreciate that a lower refresh rate means the battery will last even longer, the 60Hz display will not bother you at all. Otherwise, the display excellent at showing deep blacks and vivid colors; it can also be made almost blindingly bright

Battery Life, Speed, and Operating System

The V60 ThinQ has a very generous 5,000mAh which can get me through a day and a half of steady use before a charge is absolutely necessary — but that’s only when the phone is being used without the Dual Screen case. Using the Dual Screen case knocks off at least a third of the expected battery life. When it’s time to top it off, the V60 supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0 through the USB Type-C port as well as the convenience of Qi wireless charging. The V60 ThinQ is loaded with the top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Octa-core chip (the same one that’s in the Samsung S20 series), and the phone has a respectable 8GB RAM with 128GB user memory and microSD memory card expansion possible. The LG V60 ThinQ runs Android 10, which is the latest version of Android available … right now. I’m a little bit concerned because, in the past, LG hasn’t been great about regularly pushing security or feature updates. However, the latest update on the V60 ThinQ is April 29th which is on par with the Pixel 4 XL’s May 5th update and OnePlus’s May 6th update. To be fair, Samsung hasn’t updated the Galaxy S20 series since March 27th (on my AT&T version, anyway). Hopefully, LG is going to continue to do better with updates.

The Camera

The camera is usually the point where a phone that I’m reviewing will either set itself apart from others or it will slide into a mediocre pack. The ideal camera on any phone, at least for me, is one that can take consistently good photos without a lot of fiddling around and without taking too long. While I haven’t been able to use the LG while traveling, as I usually try to do for reviews, I have used the V60 ThinQ all around our home and yard during this quarantine, taking photos of daily life as it happens. These photos were resized to 2500 pixels and renamed, but otherwise, they haven’t been retouched. Some have an @geardiary watermark on them because the V60 ThinQ has a camera setting that will automatically add them on its own; this feature is fantastic for perfectly framed shots, but it’s not so great if you have to crop. Even so, automatic watermarking is a surprisingly handy set-it-and-forget-it feature that I wish every camera on every different manufacturer’s phone had. You can click on any one of these photos to start a slideshow.

All this photo needs is a little cropping and tweaking, and it would be ready to use in a post; that’s a handy feature for a blogger!

And while it may seem like a little thing to some, I like that you can set Google Photos to be the default gallery over the included LG app; that is impossible to do on the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra.

On its own, the LG V60 ThinQ has been an enjoyable phone to use, but it happens to have an ace up its sleeve when it’s in the Dual Screen Case.

The LG V60 ThinQ Dual Case

Why would I want to go out of my way to add extra weight and bulk to my already chunky LG V60 ThinQ? Ordinarily, I might have to take a hard pass. Sheltering at home for the past 2+ months has given me a new perspective on what I find useful and what I don’t. Suddenly portability isn’t as huge a deal to me, and the ability to multitask is now most important. The LG V60 ThinQ Dual Screen case has made it a cinch to handle two tasks at once, although the experience isn’t without caveats.

One of the first caveats I’ll bring up is that LG has once again made the Dual Screen case hardware so that it covers up the USB Type-C port on the bottom of the V60ThinQ.

LG G8X ThinQ in Dual Screen case on top of the LG V50 ThinQ in its Dual Screen case.

I’m not sure why they discontinued the open bottom with POGO pin design of the V50 ThinQ and its Dual Screen case when they made the Dual Screen case for the G8X ThinQ, but once again, for the V60 ThinQ, we are left with having to use an easy-to-misplace magnetic plug that snaps onto the end of a Type-C cable. For a better look at what I’m talking about, take a look at this shot comparing the open bottom of the V50 ThinQ in its Dual Screen case versus the closed bottom of the G8X ThinQ in its Dual Screen case. The good news is that you can wirelessly charge the V60 ThinQ while it’s in the DualCase on any Qi-enabled charging pad.

The Dual Screen case is 6.96″ tall by 3.4″ wide by 0.6″ thick, and on its own, it weighs 4.7 ounces; with the LG V60 ThinQ installed, the combo weighs a whopping 12.3 ounces. Yeah, that’s not a typo. :grimace:

In return for that extra weight, you get two matching 6.8″ FHD+ OLED (2460 x 1080 and 395 ppi) displays that can allow you to become a master multitasker. The only front-facing camera is on the main (right) screen, but the identical screen on the right has the same hole-punch camera. It’s symmetrical, and it doesn’t bug me.

You can personalize the second screen to match your main screen’s wallpaper. You can add dock apps, widgets, and app folders to it; in other words, it’s like having a second phone that can communicate (almost) flawlessly with your main phone.

Now, are you going to get the full-sized tablet screen experience you get with a folding display smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy Fold or the Huawei Mate X? Obviously not. The bezels on both screens make that impractical and ugly.

But what you can do with the second screen is have your email open on one side while you watch YouTube videos on the other. You can peruse Instagram while on a Zoom call. You can have messages open while you’re reading a book. You can have a game with obnoxious ads open on one screen while you read the news on the other screen. Yes, you can use the second screen as a gamepad; yes, you can use the second screen as a live viewfinder when taking photos, and yes, you can use the LG Smart Keyboard as an edge-to-edge keyboard for a cute little on-the-go mini laptop. But let’s get real. The main benefit for some people will be that they can have a dictionary open on one screen while they are playing Word with Friends on the other.

When you’re using the Dual Screen features, you can swap screens from the main to the second screen, you can put the main screen to sleep, or you can turn off the Dual Screen completely. The Dual Screen case folds 360º so you can fold the second screen behind the main screen when you need to reply to emails or answer texts with both thumbs; it’s a bit difficult to manage actual keying when the Dual Screen case is open, otherwise, unless you are proficient at typing with your pointer fingers.

The last thing I want to bring up is the handy cover display on the front cover of the Dual Screen case. It offers built-in notifications, the date, and time, as well as battery information. It’s very handy to have this info available when the V60 ThinQ is in the Dual Screen case.

Pandemics are weird. The things that seemed important a few months ago, like pocketable phones with cute little displays, aren’t quite as appealing anymore. Needs and wants change, and right now — a phone that can give me two large, fully independent and functioning displays without having to switch back and forth between two apps on a single screen seems like a no-brainer. With the Dual Screen case installed on the LG V60 ThinQ, I feel like I am functioning at a more efficient level than normal. Right now, that’s priceless.

The LG V60 ThinQ with Dual Screen Case retails between $800 and $999 depending on where and how It’s purchased; it is available directly from LG, as well as AT&T (expect plenty of pre-loaded bloatware), Sprint, Verizon, and other retailers.

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: 5G support; 3.5mm headphone jack; The LG V60 ThinQ in blue with the gold accents is gorgeous; The screen is brilliant; The phone is responsive and fast; You can add a microSD card to expand storage; The Dual Screen case is easy to activate, personalize, and control; Excellent battery life (when not using the Dual Screen case); IP68 dust and water-resistance; Excellent Quad-DAC features that work with wired headphones

What Needs Improvement: Battery life takes a huge ding when running both screens; Phone will be too large for many — one-hand use is practically impossible — even without the Dual Screen case; Adding the Dual Screen case makes the already large LG V60 ThinQ bricklike; No face-ID; The proprietary magnetic charging attachment needs to go; The bezels are still just a tad too large between the phone and the second screen when the LG V60 ThinQ is in the Dual Case — If LG can ever get the bezels eliminated when the phone is in the Dual Case, they will have a solid folding phone alternative; No option to enable 90Hz or 120Hz

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/05/17/lg-v60-thinq-with-dual-screen-review/

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suzanneshannon · 4 years

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Thank You (2019 Edition)

One of our yearly traditions here is to thank all y'all CSS-Tricks readers at the passing of a new year. It means a lot to me that people come here and read the words I write, and the words of all our staff and guest authors that contribute here as well.

Thank you!

Plus, we dig into the numbers this time of year. I've always tried to be open about the analytics on this site. Looking at them year after year always serves up a good reminder: niche blogging is a slow game. There's no hockey-stick growth around here. Never has been, never will be. The trick is to build slowly over time, taking care of the site, investing in it, working hard, and with some luck, numbers trend upward. This year, overall traffic didn't even do that. Sometimes you gotta fight for what you've got! Growth came in other areas though. Let's take a gander.

It was January 1st, 2019 that the current design of this site (v17) debuted, so this entire year overlaps perfectly with that. I'll certainly be tempted to release major iterations with that same timing in the future for comparison sake.

Overall numbers

Google Analytics is showing me 90.3 million pageviews, which is a bit of a decline from 2018 at over 91 million. A 1% decline. Not a big problem, but of course I'd way rather see a 1% increase instead. We'll take that as a kick in the butt to produce a stronger year of content to hopefully more than win it back.

Looks like we published 726 articles over the year, which includes link posts and sponsored links. A good leap from 636 last year and 595 the year before that. Clearly quantity isn't the trick to traffic for us.

I don't know that we'll slow down necessarily. I like the fact that we're publishing multiple times a day with noteworthy links because I like to think of us as a timely industry publication that you can read like a daily or weekly newspaper in addition to being an evergreen reference. I don't think we'll invest in increasing volume, though. Quality moves the needle far more than quantity for this gang.

There is a bunch of numbers I just don't feel like looking at this year. We've traditionally done stuff like what countries people are from, what browsers they use (Chrome-dominant), mobile usage (weirdly low), and things like that. This year, I just don't care. This is a website. It's for everyone in the world that cares to read it, in whatever country they are in and whatever browser they want to. We still track those numbers (because Google Analytics automatically does), so we can visit them again in the future and look historically if it gets interesting again. Taking a quick peak, however, it's not much different than any other year.

Performance numbers are always fascinating. Google Analytics tells me the average page load time is 5.32s. On my fast home internet (even faster at the office), the homepage loads for me in 970ms, but it's more like 30 seconds when throttled to "Slow 3G." "Fast 3G" is 8 seconds. Sorta makes sense that most visitors are on faster-than-3G connections since the traffic is largely skewed toward desktop. No cache, we're talking 54 requests (including ads) and 770KB (fits on a floppy). It's good enough that I'm not itching to dig into a performance sprint.

Top posts of the year

You'd think we would do a section like this ever year, but because of our URL structure, I haven't had easy access to figure this out. Fortunately, in March 2019, Jacob Worsøe helped us add some Custom Dimensions to our Google Analytics so we can track things like author and year with each pageview.

That means we can find things, like the most popular articles written in 2019, rather than just the most popular articles looked at in 2019 — regardless of when they were was written. Here's a graph Jacob sent:

Here's that list in text:

The Great Divide

Change Color of SVG on Hover

New ES2018 Features Every JavaScript Developer Should Know

An Introduction to Web Components

Where Do You Learn HTML & CSS in 2019?

The Many Ways to Change an SVG Fill on Hover (and When to Use Them)

Look Ma, No Media Queries! Responsive Layouts Using CSS Grid

How to Section Your HTML

Prevent Page Scrolling When a Modal is Open

CSS Animation Libraries

8.25% of traffic came from articles written this year. If you look at where these articles fall on the list of all URLs in 2019 (not just those published in 2019), the top article starts at #75! Hard to compete with older articles that have had time to gather SEO steam. This kind of thing makes me want to get re-focused on referential content even more.

Interesting that our top article was editorial, but everything else is referential. I like a little editorial here and there, but clearly our bread and butter is how-to technical stuff.

There are two aspects of search that are interesting to me:

What do people search for right here on the site itself?

What search terms do people use on Google to find this site?

On-site search is handled by Jetpack's Elasticsearch feature, which I'm still quite liking (they are a sponsor, but it's very true). This also means we can track its usage pretty easily using the analytics on my WordPress.com dashboard. I also installed a Search Meter plugin to track search form entries. I can look at Google searches through the SiteKit plugin, which pulls from Google Search Console.

Here are all three, with duplicates removed.

Jetpack Search Data Search Meter Search Data Google Search Data 1 amazon (?!) flexbox flexbox 2 flexbox grid css grid 3 css tricks flex css tricks 4 flexbox guide animation css important 5 css grid svg css triangle 6 css flex position mailto link 7 grid guide css grid vertical align css 8 css important css css comment 9 the great divide border css shapes 10 css shapes background css background image opacity

There is a bit of a fat head of traffic here with our top 10 pages doing about 10% of traffic, which syncs up with those big searches for stuff like flexbox and grid and people landing on our great guides. If you look at our top 100 pages, that goes out to about 38% of traffic, and articles past that are about 0.1% of traffic and go down from there. So I'd say our long tail is our most valuable asset. That mass of articles, videos, snippets, threads, etc. that make up 62% of all traffic.

Social media

It's always this time of year I realize how little social media does for our traffic and feel stupid for spending so much time on it. We pretty much only do Twitter and it accounts for 1% of the traffic to this site. We still have a Facebook page but it's largely neglected except for auto-posting our own article links to it. I find value in Twitter, through listening in on industry conversations and having fun, but I'm going to make a concerted effort to spend less time and energy on our outgoing social media work. If something is worth tweeting for us, it should be worth blogging; and if we blog it, it can be auto-tweeted.

But by way of numbers, we went from 380k followers on @css to 430k. Solid growth there, but the rate of growth is the same every year, to the point it's weirdly consistent.

I also picked up an Instagram account this year. Haven't done much there, but I still like it. For us, I think each post on Instagram can represent this little opportunity to clearly explain an idea, which could ultimately turn into a nice referential book or the like someday. A paultry 1,389 followers there.

Newsletter

I quite like our newsletter. It's this unique piece of writing that goes out each week and gives us a chance to say what we wanna say. It's often a conglomeration of things we've posted to the site, so it's an opportunity to stay caught up with the site, but even those internal links are posted with new commentary. Plus, we link out to other things that we may not mention on the site. And best of all, it typically has some fresh editorial that's unique to the newsletter. The bulk of it is done by Robin, but we all chip in.

All that to say: I think it's got a lot of potential and we're definitely going to keep at it.

We had the biggest leap in subscribership ever this year, starting the year at 40k subscribers and ending at 65k. That's 2.5× the biggest leap in year-over-year subscribers so far. I'd like to think that it's because it's a good newsletter, but also because it's integrated into the site much better this year than it ever has been.

Comments

Oh, bittersweet comments. The bad news is that I feel like they get a little worse every year. There is more spam. People get a little nastier. I'm always teetering on the edge of just shutting them off. But then someone posts something really nice or really helpful and I'm reminded that we're a community of developers and I love them again.

4,710 approved comments. Up quite a bit from 3,788 last year, but still down from 5,040 in 2017. Note that these are approved comments, and it's notable that this entire year we've been on a system of hand-approving all comments before they go out. Last year, I estimated about half of comments make it through that, and this year I'd estimate it at more like 30-40%. So, the straight-up number of comments isn't particularly interesting as it's subject to our attitude on approval. Next year, I plan to have us be more strict than we've ever been on only approving very high-quality comments.

I'm still waiting for WordPress to swoon me with a recommitment to making commenting good again. ;)

Forums

There were a couple of weeks just in December where I literally shut down the forums. They've been teetering on end-of-life for years. The problem is that I don't have time to tend to them myself, nor do I think it's worth paying someone to do so, at least not now. Brass tacks, they don't have any business value and I don't extract enough other value out of them to rationalize spending time on them.

If they just sat there and were happy little forums, I'd just leave them alone, but the problem is spam. It was mostly spam toward the end, which is incredibly tedious to clean up and requires extra human work.

I've kicked them back on for now because I was informed about a spam-blocking plugin that apparently can do incredible work specifically for bbPress spam. Worth a shot!

Interestingly, over the year, the forums generated 7m pageviews, which is 7.6% of all traffic to the site. Sorta makes sense as they are the bulk of the site URLs and they are user-generated threads. Long tail.

Goal review

✅ Polish this new design. Mixed feelings. But I moved the site to a private GitHub repo half-way through the year, and there have been 195 commits since then, so obviously work is getting done. I'll be leaving this design up all of 2020 and I'd like to make a more concerted effort at polish.

✅ Improve newsletter publishing and display. Nailed this one. In March, we moved authoring right here on the site using the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress. That means it's easier to write while being much easier to display nicely on this site. Feels great.

☯️ Raise the bar on quality. I'm not marking it as a goal entirely met because I'm not sure we changed all that much. There was no obvious jump upward in quality, but I think we do pretty good in general and would like to see us continue to hold steady there.

❌ Better guides. We didn't do all that much with guides. Part of the problem is that it's a little confusing. For one thing, we have "guides" (e.g. our guide to flexbox) which is obviously useful and doing well. Then there are "Guide Collections" (e.g. our Custom Properties Guide) which are like hand-picked and hand-ordered selections of articles. I'm not entirely sure how useful those hand-curated guides are, especially considering we also have tag pages which are more sortable. The dudes with the biggest are the hand-written articles-on-steroids types, so that's worth the most investment.

New goals

100k on email list. That would be a jump of 35k which is more than we've ever done. Ambitious. Part of this is that I'm tempted to try some stuff like paid advertising to grow it, so I can get a taste for that world. Didn't Twitter have a special card where people could subscribe right from a Tweet? Stuff like that.

Two guides. The blog-post-on-steroids kind. The flexbox one does great for us, traffic-wise, but I also really enjoy this kind of creative output. I'll be really sad if we can't at least get two really good ones done this year.

Have an obvious focus on how-to referential technical content. This is related to the last goal, but goes for everyday publishing. I wouldn't be mad if every darn article we published started with "How To."

Get on Gutenberg. The new WordPress block editor. This is our most ambitious goal. Or at least I think it is. It's the most unknown because I literally don't know what issues we're going to face when turning it on for more than a decade's worth of content that's been authored in the classic editor. I don't think it's going to hurt anything. It's more a matter of making sure:

authoring posts has all the same functionality and conveniences as we have now,

editing old posts doesn't require any manual conversion work, and

it feels worth doing.

But I haven't even tried yet, so it's a don't-know-what-I-don't-know situation.

Again, thanks so much!

I was thinking about how stage musicians do that thing where they thank their fans almost unfailingly. Across any genre. Even if they say hardly anything into a microphone during the performance, they will at least thank people for coming, if not absolutely gush appreciation at the crowd. It's cliché, but it's not disingenuous. I can imagine it's genuinely touching to look out across a room of people that all choose to spend a slice of their lives listening to you do your thing.

I feel that way here. I can't see you as easily as looking out over a room, but I feel it in the comments you post, the emails you send, the tweets you tagged us in, and all that. You're spending some of your life with us and that makes me feel incredibly grateful. Cheers.

🍻

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Thank You (2019 Edition) published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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doesitreallywork · 5 years

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moonmythology · 6 years

Text

What it Feels Like to Be Human - Chapter 1: Encounters and Misunderstandings

Synopsis: Athdhea Lavellan always wanted to find out what it means to be human. Becoming the Herald of Andraste taught her to be careful of what one wishes for. So far away from home, she finds herself drawn towards her Commander, despite their differences, and a mysterious elf, who has always been in her dreams. CullenxLavellanxSolas.

Chapter Overview: As Athdhea Lavellan adjusts to her new life as Herald of Andraste, she finds herself drawn to one particular ex-Templar. Cullen is not sure how he feels about the attention.

This fic can also be read in fanfiction.net and AO3

Athdhea Lavellan never liked writing letters, let alone write them in a language that is not her own. The past several days she had to write several of them with the help of Lady Josephine—to Chantry Sisters, Teyrns, Arls and to many other human titles she could not remember. One letter in particular though, she had to write on her own. Even though it was one that she wrote in her own language, it did not make writing any easier.

Dearest Sister,

I am well. As you may have heard from Keeper Deshanna, the humans have been nothing but kindness to me, and I am slowly adapting to their ways.

I am sorry I missed your ceremony. But one comfort from this is that you do not have to hide anymore, and while bring First may be daunting, in time, you will learn as I have. I have faith in you.

She used the bulk of the letter describing some things that she found amusing—like those little bowls that's changed in her room every morning, which she later learned were things that humans used to relieve themselves, or the little scroll binders that humans use to compile knowledge, called books—which were kept in wooden slits fixed to the walls of the Chantry. Those little things at least can give a sense that she was somewhat comfortable and safe.

Of course, that is not completely true. At first, the humans did keep her as prisoner, but only because they thought she blew up their place of worship and many people inside it, including what it looks like their Keeper—the Divine. And there was the matter of her left hand, which always glowed with a bright green hew whenever it was near those portals to the Fade they called rifts, and shot an intense pain through her veins every time she wielded it against those rifts. Still, after that incident, she marveled at how the villagers treated her with utmost respect—almost to the point of worship—the Herald of Andraste, so they called her.

Yet despite their reverence, everything still felt strange—the sound of the language spoken around her was different, and though they knew that she was Dalish, she got the sense that nobody knew from where she really was, because every time she explained something, people tended to give her a certain curious look as if she was describing something foreign. She was the First of her Clan, so she was well studied in the human language to the point of near fluency. Her clan traded often with humans, and she knew more than enough of the language to be able to sneak herself inside that very important human meeting that got her into this fiasco in the first place. Nonetheless, every time she used it, it always reminded her that that language was not her own.

Athdhea closed her letter with greetings to friends and other family members, and well wishes for her sister, Samahl's new appointment as the new First. Her sister becoming the First is the one of the good things that came out of this unexpected turn of events. Samahl's magical capabilities was an open secret in the clan. They knew she had it but she was never allowed to use it, for fear that the other clans find out, and having her sister sent away alone. It was something she could not bear. Both of them never knew their parents, so Samahl was the world to her. And now, that world has drifted far away. The best thing she could do is to send some words that would let her imagine her sister smiling.

As soon as she dispatched her letter to one of Leliana's messengers, she found her feet moving through the snow towards the outside of Haven's gates, and towards the trees beyond it. On one low tree, her arms moved to pull herself up its branches, towards a semblance of some familiarity. Even though she's been living in Haven for some time, she's still not used to its cold stone walls where people live in. Trees to her felt closer to home, and she found herself, on a few occasions dreaming on its branches.

It was her natural curiosity that made her volunteer for the spying mission. Growing up, shemlens always fascinated her with their power, knowledge and technology. She knew that elves who lived among humans clustered around alienages, and she knew about human armies raiding other clans, so she was always careful around them, particularly those heavily armored ones who hunted people with magic. They were different but fascinating. While many in her clan always looked backwards to those times when elves ruled the land and those times when their own gods walked alongside them, at least the shemlens looked to the future. Volunteering gave her a chance to learn more about them, and what it may feel like to be human. Nowadays, she if she ever had that opportunity to caution her past self, she would have told herself to be careful of what she wished for.

Haven has many dreams, so she has seen. Solas told her about a lot of them. Among all her new companions, he at least spoke her language. He was an elf who is quite vocal in his dislike for her people, yet he always spoke of beautiful dreams. Through him, she learned how to make herself dream, and to see the dreams around her. One time, she dreamt of a large group violent men killed anyone who visited this little town and sacrificed them to the dragon they worshipped. She saw Rosamond Cousland, hero of Ferelden, charge the beast with her flaming red hair flailing in the wind, and her companions—the king of Ferelden, two female mages, a qunari, an elven assassin, a dwarf, and a familiar red headed bard, follow after her. The bard, Athdhea recognized as Leliana. And when she asked Leliana about it, the latter was surprised at how accurately this precocious elf described that old battle. In a lot of ways, Athdhea found that dreams do help her understand her new reality, and all it took was a little bit of lyrium to make these dreams happen.

Athdhea was about to take a sip of lyrium, when heard hard footsteps below her.

"Your Worship?"

Her feet moved to flee by reflex, but ice on the tree caused her hand to slip sending her falling down the pile of snow below.

"Your Worship!" the voice repeated in alarm.

When her eyes adjusted, she found herself staring above towards a pair of brown eyes that belonged to Commander Cullen. "Are you alright?" he asked gently. His voice sounded different compared to his usual forceful commanding tone. This time, it was a lot softer, more undecided.

"Commander…I'm fine. You just startled me, that's all."

"I'm sorry."

After he helped her up on her feet, she found herself explaining. "I wasn't running away. I do intend to keep my promise to the Inquisition." The man before her used to hunt people like her, and he probably followed her to keep her from escaping.

"Whatever made you think that I was…oh! I did not mean to make you think that…" His voiced trailed off. Athdhea found herself equally dumbfounded by this version of the Commander who was awkward, and a lot less in control.

"I'm sorry I misjudged your intentions."

"It is not entirely your fault. I, after all, was the one who startled you."

It suddenly occurred to her that she knew nothing of the Commander, or any of the ex-templars who fought with her some weeks ago. This man in particular, she knew, gave up his post in Kirkwall to fight for her. Maybe he wasn't as cold as she originally thought.

"If you don't mind my asking, what were you doing up there?"

"I wanted to dream, that's all."

"Dream?" he asked incredulously. "On a tree?"

A moment of realization came: adult humans don't climb trees. To him, she probably seemed very much like a child. And she was tired of explaining herself. "You humans have no imagination at all."

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend. You are, after all, very far away from home. You must miss it."

There was genuine fluster and concern in his voice. If he did not follow her, why was he at the edge of the forest? "If you weren't following me, why were you here, Commander?"

"I was just…trying to catch some air."

Upon closer examination, Athdhea did realize that he did look pale, a lot paler than most humans, almost as if he was ill. "Are you feeling unwell?"

"Just a headache. It will pass as it always does."

At that moment, the Commander and ex-templar, suddenly became vulnerable, almost like any normal person. "Let me." Drawing closer towards him, her hands touched his forehead.

"What are you doing?"

"Quiet! I'm trying something."

Her fingers glowed as she silently uttered a spell. There was no assurance that it would work, but after a minute some color was restored to his cheeks. She quickly pulled away after realizing that their faces were dangerously close.

The ex-templar, as flustered as she was, muttered, "What did you just do?"

"A healing spell. Did it work?"

"Maybe." She could swear she saw his cheeks redden. That was a good sign.

"I'm glad."

They were silent for a while. The awkwardness was still there, but at least there was no fear. Not anymore.

"Well, if you don't mind…" the Commander started, "I'll get back to my soldiers, so you can get back to your…dreaming. Good day to you, Herald."

"Athdhea." Her voice stopped him for a second. "I would like you to call me by my name, since we are working together."

"Of course…Athdhea."

"Good day…Cullen."

Both paused after each said the other's name. Athdhea found the exchange interesting to say the least. Instead of climbing back up the tree, she found herself walking back to Haven. The dreams will have to wait.

Cullen thought they were getting along so well.

Before this misunderstanding, she started approaching him during training. She asked about the status of the soldiers, what his life as a Templar was like, and she even joked about his relationships, or the lack thereof. When she started a bit of sword training under Cassandra-she wanted to be able to fight in those times when she runs out of magical energy—he even stepped in one time to correct her stance. And she did not mind that at all.

Until one day, he started receiving gifts—ram meat, some things that she may have gathered during one of her hunts, and various herbs that he received from Inquisition messengers who all said it was from her. At first, he found the gestures nice, until they became quite excessive. The last straw came when Harrit approached his tent bearing a sword, who said that the Herald forged it herself for him. Indeed that got a lot of giggles from all the other officers. It did not help that Varric too loudly joked at dinnertime about writing a story about a forbidden romance between an elven mage and an ex-Templar.

He had enough, and it was time to put an end to this. Maybe if he let her down easily, she would be able to move on. And it was too bad, because he rather liked the sword she forged for him. And he had to admit that at times, he thought she was pretty.

It was difficult to get her alone, because most of the time, he found her writing with Varric, getting lessons about diplomacy from Josephine or chatting away with the elven apostate in a language that he definitely does not understand. Until one time after a war meeting, he was able to call her aside.

"Your Wor—Athdhea…" he started. "May I speak with you alone?"

"Gladly," she replied smiling. "I was waiting for you to ask me that."

She was not making it easy.

For a while, they walked around Haven, not uttering a word. When they finally reached the gates, they simultaneously broke the silence.

"I'm not interested in a relationship at the—"

"Would you please train me how to wield a sword?" she asserted loudly.

They started at each other disbelievingly. At that moment, he suddenly wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

He nervously cleared his throat, "Wait, you want me to teach you?"

"I thought it was clear," she asserted. "Cassandra thought that it would be a good idea for you to teach me instead…And the ram, herbs, the sword … All of it was to prove my intention to learn. Aren't you supposed to do that to show respect to your Masters? I thought-or is it just another thing I did wrong?"

"One does not do those things to just anyone here."

"Wait, you thought I was interested in you?"

He hung his head in shame. "Oh Sweet Maker, please kill me now."

"Cullen, I-"

"Let's speak about this later!" he interrupted, trying not to show the obvious signs of embarrassment on his face. "I have a training exercise to attend to! Goodbye!" With that, he went as far away from the war room as he could. If there was an ensuing battle, he would have found it so he would have died quickly.

That night, he sought out Cassandra, who was drinking with Leliana and Josephine in the tavern. He asked Cassandra if she got the same gifts that he did, when she trained with her initially.

"Oh I did," she admitted. "And I thought it was very…thoughtful."

"For you, maybe."

"I thought her fervor is one that would have been becoming of any knight, if only she wasn't a mage…"

"Oh, you and your romances Cassandra," Leliana interjected. "But I do see that a little bit of romance does suit our dashing Commander. Look! He's blushing!"

"I'm not—"

"Don't worry Commander, you do look pretty when you blush!"

Josephine added, "Perhaps there is a more diplomatic solution to your romantic problems, Commander…That may involve—"

"There is none!"

Days passed and he avoided her, even when she volunteered to personally recruit Mother Giselle herself in the Hinterlands. Weeks passed, and he always received word from her via Leliana and Josephine, who often both put emphasis on her indirect messages to him with numerous giggles.

Finally, a letter came. It was open of course, and Leliana's eyes definitely saw it first, who probably would tease him endlessly about it as soon as he sees her. The letter said:

Dear Commander,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I am writing to request some troops to build some watchtowers at the villagers' request. I see no harm to it, and I do think it will benefit the nearby its nearby inhabitants greatly, especially if they get more security against bandits and wild animals. And it would greatly please the Horsemaster.

Please do tell me what you think about this, and send your reply as soon as possible.

Regards,

Athdhea Lavellan

PS. We really should talk when I get back.

PPS. I am not interested in you either.

He found it very short, but very cutting in its brevity. There goes any chance of anything with her. It was over even before it had begun. To this, he sent a sort reply indicating that he is sending soldiers her way. In the next war meeting, sans Cassandra and her, Leliana kept humming tragic love songs and songs about couples breaking up. There was almost no end to it.

Until thankfully, she came back. She came just when he was breaking a fight between mages and Templars just outside the gates. It did not help that Chancellor Roderick was seemingly goading the fight. Soon it was decided that they definitely should pick a side, and picking either side would not bode well for the other. But even days after her arrival, she did not seek him out. He had enough. He needed to know.

When he found her, she was speaking with Solas, who excused himself when he saw him. As they sat together, near one of the huts, she avoided his gaze.

"You really are not interested in me?" he begun.

"You came over here to ask me that?" was the reply.

"Yes."

"Then no! No, I am not interested in you. Does that satisfy you?"

He nodded.

"Good!"

"Good."

"So will you teach me then?" Her eyes fluttered eagerly.

"Why do you care so much about this? You're already a mage. You may be taking too much upon yourself."

"It won't be too much if I at least can defend myself from an enemy at close quarters," she said determinedly, "especially when I run out of strength to draw mana. You know as well as I that I am defenseless from any Templar or anyone with the same ability. I don't want anyone risking their lives to save mine."

"That's what friends do. And you're lucky to have them, especially Cassandra."

"She threatened to kill me the first time we met."

"I would have been more worried if she did not threaten you enough."

They laughed.

"So will you—"

"Alright! Alright!" He said with a defeated sigh. "Maker, you are persistent. Just the basics, alright? And do not expect that I would go easy on you just because you are the Herald of Andraste."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

He got up on his feet, and with his commanding voice, he shouted, "On your feet, recruit! Head to the training camp and strike one of the practice dummies one thousand times!"

"One thousand?!"

"I'll make it two thousand if you ask me one more time. Do I hear any complaints?"

"No, sir!" she declared, imitating a salute from one of his soldiers, before scuffling towards the training camp.

Someday, he will get back at her for all this embarrassment.

A/N: Thanks for reading! This is my first fic in a while. For this, I want to give the Inquisitor's story similar to an immigrant's experience and what it's like to a adapt to a culture that she barely understands. It will be in rotating POV, so expect Cullen and Cassandra in the next few chapters. Solas will feature significantly in the next chapter, and there will be a triangle. Anyway, thanks!

A/N2: If you're reading this as of Aug 25, 2018, perhaps some would notice the chapter merger. No big change but I need it to keep the chapter longer. Besides, they both are about misunderstandings even if they are on different POVs.

A/N3: If you’re wondering what the ships are, I mean this to be a CullenxLavellanxSolas love triangle. Obviously here in this chapter though, it’s CullenxLavellan because we really dont see Solas here. The next chapter will be more Solavellan focused.

#cullen rutherford #commander cullen #cullen x inquisitor #cullen x lavellan #cullenxlavellan #cullenxlavellanxsolas #cullen x lavellan x solas #cullenites #dragon age #dragon age inquisition

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deathcomesinallcolors · 7 years

Text

This will be personal. I'm sorry.

If I weren’t on mobile, I’d make it a read more. As it is, you can scroll on by.

I honestly don’t know how much longer I will last in my mother’s house. I live there now with my parabatai and roommate, and I’ve been stuck here for two years. I graduated college two years ago and, left with nowhere else to go, turned home.

I was going to save up to move to New York City. I was going to be a private eye. I had majored in criminal justice, and all my best professors had been supportive. “E-mail me when you get there!” my favorite professor said, a sociology teacher. “Tell me all about your wild adventures.”

Six months passed by without a job. Finally, I started work at a DIY hardware store. I was paid pretty well. I hated it there, but I was meeting important people. Federal agents and cops told me I should apply here and there. The manager at an Enterprise gave me his card, said he loved my lively personality and that I should join their manager’s program. My manager loved me and pushed me to apply for better, permanent jobs within the store. She begged me to stay past my seasonal term.

Yes, I was a seasonal cashier. My term lasted 6 months, unless they decided to keep me. In truth, I worked dozens of jobs around the store that wasn’t actually part of my job. Running deliveries of paper towels and cleaning supplies and leaving my post to check if there was a refrigerator hiding in receiving, because the guys back there were always too busy to help customer service.

Despite the horrid work environment, it was a stable job. Everything was going well. I felt my life hit the rails and click as it slowly progressed forward. I and my best friend decided to get out of our parents’ houses and move in together. We signed for an apartment. I applied to Enterprise, where I mentioned the manager BY NAME and waited for a phone interview. Our lives were looking great.

Then the apartment place never let us move in. Enterprise turned me down. My job let me go without even mentioning my last day. When pressed, HR shrugged a wishy washy “Oh, we’re considering you.” They never called.

I found myself fighting the apartment manager’s secretary (as their manager was invisible and avoided everyone, even tenants), then the landlord company itself. They owed me $600 of security deposits and application fees, not even including $200 for the uhaul expenses made the day our contract said we could move in. They voided our contract, and this criminal justice student was going to take them to court.

They paid up, but we still found ourselves jobless and homeless. My roommate’s family was six states away. Mine didn’t want me. But I was stuck with them anyway, along with my roommate.

For half a year, they pretended to care. I got a job at Target. But no matter how hard I worked, my parents always said, “You should be working harder. We won’t let you stay here forever.”

It’s been eight months that I’ve lived in my parents’ house with my best friend. In that time, I’ve lost $2000. My mother promised to give me a food budget, but refuses to give me money for food, because she “doesn’t trust” me. She thinks I’ll use food money on games or pizza.

They no longer trust me. That has partly to do with my friend (they always blame a queer friend of mine to blame for my changes in belief–he is just the most recent), my sexuality, gender expression, and also…the fact I saved a mouse.

After a long day at my hardware store job, I walked out into the parking lot, only to find a gray speck scurrying around the lot. I approached cautiously. It was a baby mouse, only a few days old. Its eyes were barely open. It must have wandered away from the hay bales we sold not twenty feet away, along with its little hay mouse family.

I rushed to my car–my mom’s car–retrieved an old pair of garage gloves, and chased it around the lot. Finally, I scooped it up, placed it in an upended plastic bin from the car, and drove to a pet store. I got it a turtle cage and all its little baby mousie necessities. I then snuck it upstairs.

A few days later, my mother stepped foot into my room and found the mouse cage sitting there, on the floor. She dropped a book on top of the cage to “keep it closed”, covering the breathing holes and nearly suffocating the poor dear. I came home to a very quiet, terrified mouse.

They tried to toss it out. They tried to toss ME out. I called their bluff. I refused to kill this helpless creature, this small, baby animal that would die without my care.

So I nursed it. I bathed it with Dawn. And after much pictures to my parabatai and his vet mother, I named her Eleven. Named for the days she survived before I found her.

My mother screamed it would give us all diseases and died. From its urine, from its fur, from its very air. I showed her links to medical websites, disproving all of this. I showed her texts from my friend’s vet mom. I debunked every single argument, but still she shrieked and cried and screamed. The moment I raised my voice in defense, she stomped to her feet and thrust her face in mine. Threatened to hit me. To throw me on the streets. My fists shook at my sides with anger and fear. But still I held my ground. I would not kill this small animal.

And that was before I brought home a trans gay boy to live with me. And the two stray secret kittens we saved from our local rescue. And his bunny and bird we brought from his family’s home.

Maybe I don’t deserve their trust. But I do deserve to eat. I deserve to live.

Today, I approached my mother about our food budget. Way back with our failed apartment expedition, The Deer Run, she had promised to give us a $200 monthly food budget. To help out. Instead, while we’ve been living here, she saves all our receipts and, 3 months later, pays us back for certain food items. Anything she pays us for, before she even pays us, is free game. It’s food for the house, not for us. Because if she pays for it, and it’s her house, she and the family gets to use it. That’s fair. IF SHE WOULD PAY US BEFORE WE RUN OUT OF MONEY.

I asked her if she could give is that stipend instead of…this. I channeled Gansey, reasoned with her. Offered multiple solutions so we can better budget our food spending, because…if we don’t know when and how much we’ll be paid, we don’t know what we can afford. And if she keeps the receipts, we don’t know what we’ve spent.

Instead, she talks over me. Accuses us of “living in the lap of luxury.” She outright refuses to give us grocery money for when they’ll be in Honolulu for two weeks, because we might “spend it all on video games and pizza.” Pizza. Really? Even foregoing the obvious fact that if we run out of money, that’s OUR PROBLEM, pizza is definitely food the last time I checked.

She said she wants to know what we’re buying, always, because she doesn’t trust us. Me. “I don’t care,” I told her, “ You can have all the receipts. I just want to eat.”

“You can eat anything in this house,” she laughs hysterically. “Everything here is open to you.”

Condiments. Chips. Clam soup that would make me vomit. And…pounds and pounds of frozen chicken far past due. Yeah. Thanks.

“We don’t really like anything you stock. You don’t even get spaghettios and ravioli, except when we ask you to. But if you’re going to pay for it either way, it’s much easier to get it ourselves than wait for you to go to the grocery store.”

Back up. Background. She once told me she’d go to the grocery store on Wednesday. Two days. Okay. I could handle that. We’d eat canned soup until then, and then I’d cook something decent.

Wednesday passed. Then Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. We then decided to go out food shopping ourselves or else we would have starved. Actually starved. We hadn’t eaten in two days.

Never does she go to the grocery store on time. It takes her two weeks from when she said she would to get food, which she then buys in bulk. Which then spoils before she can use it. Bags of blueberries, bundles of asparagus, it doesn’t matter. All trash. And her cooking? I can’t eat that much grease and oil anymore without vomiting. Her meat is frozen for five months (the safe length is three) at 20 degrees. The highest safe temperature you can possible keep food is 0 degrees F. HIGHEST. It’s best when it’s -10 or -20. The 3 month length for keeping frozen food safely is at 0 degrees at the highest. She is 20 degrees above that.

It’s no wonder her gruel makes me sick.

“Once you’re out of here,” she said, heated, “you’re not coming back.”

“That’s just fine,” I stated. “That was the plan.”

I thought parents were supposed to look out for their kids. I never considered my parents abusive. But my mother is manipulative, controlling to 1984 degrees, and passive aggressive. Every time I step foot downstairs, she beats me down emotionally. My dad just sits there, beaten too, and lets her. When he’s even here.

This is the way it’s always been. But it wasn’t always this bad. I was a kid once. Once, she was loving. But now that I believe in a pantheon rather than her Christian god, now that I’ve come out as bisexual and trans, my mother doesn’t love me. And, behind closed doors, my dad agrees with her.

Once I move out–once WE move out–I’ll probably never see them again. I’ll still look after my younger siblings, though. But that doesn’t change the fact that my youngest sibling, Dalton, is home for spring break. That boy eats four helpings in a five person family. He’s the type of giant to make four sandwiches at once and finish off the loaf while he’s at it. He’s inconsiderate and unaffected. He laughs everything off, especially actual problems, just lets them run down his back because it’s not HIS problem. First come, first serve. Thin as a rail and tall as a basketball pole, all Dalton cares about is himself.

And he’s been drinking our coke. The only drink my parabatai drinks, and the only thing my mom doesn’t “reimburse” us for. When I bring it up subtly…

“Hey, Mom. Did Dalton drink our coke?” I ask conversationally.

I’m staring at the two coke bottles in the recycling. I know he has.

“Oh, yeah… I saw him make a rum and coke, so maybe.” She laughs. “We have coke, too. It’s all the same.”

No, I think to myself, fists shaking. No, it’s not. It is our money spent. Our money wasted. And he always eats our food. Without asking. While I’m cooking. Right from under my nose.

I haven’t cooked for a week.

My mother throws around the word “job” like it’s a magic word, but that doesn’t make a college degree any more valuable in this job market. All that matters is experience, and jobs won’t give me experience unless I already have it; this student with a job and essays to write didn’t have time or money for an internship.

Oh, did I mention Target let me go just after Christmas? While every store is firing people rather than hiring? I haven't had a paycheck in three months.

So here I sit. Alone with my family of parabatai, two cats, a rabbit, a field mouse, and sort-of-a-bird. I’m lucky to have them. Because I’d be dead and on the streets without them. I would have killed myself by now.

#personal

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