u/Nuclear_rabbit

I'm 5 months on HRT, in a place where it's not illegal to be trans, but it is relatively conservative. I have already lost a job from being trans (despite taking efforts to hide it from the employer and present as my AGAB).

Internally, I've decided to not even attempt to socially transition until after electrolysis is done. And even then, maybe not until FFS is done.

But I want to hear from those who have taken that step, especially presenting fem at work. How far into HRT were you when you did it? Pre-HRT? Same time? Years later? And how did it go? What was your environment? Did you have cis women around to help you? (Sounds crazy, but being in a foreign country, I don't exactly have conversation or friendship access with everyone around me).

Blazzard intern here. We've been monitoring the situation, looking at data, and reading reddit, and now we're bringing you the 5.0.16.X hotfix

Protoss:

* Warp Gate research unit build time change improved from -50% to -60%

* Robotics Facility can be transformed into Warp Robotics Facility for 25/25.

* Stargate can be transformed into Warp Stargate for 25/25.

* Mothership Core added.

* Disruptor phantom attack range reduced to melee.

* Recall now costs 50 energy, no cooldown.

* Nexus cost reduced from 4pp to 300 minerals

* Mothership ability "Archon Toilet" added

Terran:

* Command Center cost reduced from 300 to 200 minerals

* Command Centers are now salvageable.

* Warhound added.

* MULEs can mine gas.

* Ghost supply reduced from 2 to 1.

* Engineering Bays can lift off.

* Medivacs can pick up sieged tanks (but only one at a time)

* Stim can be autocast

* Reaper damage modifier per attack upgrade increased from 1 to 2.

Zerg:

* larva spawn rate reduced from 9.7 to 4

* Devourer added

All in good fun. Just wanted to have a laugh. Even though some of the stuff coming out of patches lately is crazy, other stuff has been really fun. Sometimes it seems like they throw whatever against the wall and see what sticks. It certainly makes things interesting

Today I've been feeling really down and dysphoric, but also really lonely and disconnected from people. I stay at home alone all the time. There's a lot of stuff going on.

I went out to get lunch at saladstop, as I do about once a week. The cashier remembered me and even remembered my name. I'm in full boymode presenting as my AGAB. A person connected with me and cared about me enough to remember my name and it's my birth name.

I'm feeling a lot of things. Joy and sadness together that I about started to cry waiting for my food. Anyway, just needed to share.

35, MtF, 3 months E, American in East Asia

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As the title says. For years now, I think I've been distracting myself from my body by living inside my own head. This means tens of thousands of hours on the computer, on the phone, playing video games. Daydreaming, thinking hard, studying for class, working mainly on the computer and not talking to colleagues. Doing anything to *not* be present.

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Of course, dysphoria magnified when my egg cracked about 7 months ago. But it was recently, when I've been working from home the last month or so, that it got really bad. By doing work *and* play at the same desk, I virtually never left, and it was leading to a depression spiral. Things are better now that I've had to get out of the house for several days straight.

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But the process made me realize I think I do it so I won't have to notice my body and the way it's still not gendered properly. When I go outside, seeing any attractive women sparks massive gender envy. So of course, to avoid gender envy, I guess I reflexively don't go outside? I also avoid seeing real or photorealistic women in my media. It's all cartoons and stylized graphics so the gender envy is at least abstracted. The doomscrolling makes it hard to focus on the envy because it makes it hard to focus on anything.

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But I've been mostly like this my whole life. I wonder if it's the autism (probably part of it) or how much of it was my brain subtly avoiding the distress the whole time.

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Does anyone else do anything like this? Anybody got good advice from their own therapy? 😅

Context: this is a majority-Muslim country where most churches don't even speak English. LGBT+ churches are a complete nonstarter. I'm freshly transfem but have been boymoding to everyone involved here.

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Story: I haven't been going to church for about 4 months I guess. My partner and I had been going to a particular church for I guess 4 or 5 years. We have some friends there. I don't feel like we ever got super close because we were cohabitating for a long time and didn't want anyone to judge us for it.

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When I came out to my partner, she had a complete meltdown, calling me demon possessed and everything, so I left. We didn't get married in the law, but we did get married in the church (not that one; one back in my hometown). The church tried to mediate the breakup (at my request), but at the end of a three-hour-long meeting, my ex said a lot of stuff that was very triggering. Despite opening the meeting by saying I could leave when I wanted, the senior pastor grabbed my arm and prevented me from leaving, and even followed me into the elevator. I call that physical assault.

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I stayed away after that, coming back once or twice for the early service (where *she* would not be) to at least tell a few friends what was going on with me. **Today, I sit on the steps outside the church, debating if it's worth it to go inside and talk to people.**

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My ex got me fired for being trans, but now that I have a job offer lined up in a better country, she can't take anything else away from me now. And I've been stuck and lonely inside my apartment just focusing on my own things... I need some friends to socialize with. Ideally, people who know all of me and accept me, but that's not very realistic here.

It's not your birth name, it's your dead name. Didn't you know in the 1990s, trans people had full-on funerals for their dead selves. First the one from family mourning the loss of their adult child, and second the one you did yourself with a queer party complete with headstone in a graveyard and a Bahamut sacrifice and everything.

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It's your culture! You should know this! You should follow this and connect with your people! And double so for late twentieth century ballroom culture and *all* the terminology that goes with it. That's *your* culture! What do you mean, you've never stepped in a ballroom before? You need to connect with *your* roots.

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What's that? Puppygirl culture? Polycules? Eww, no, I don't get any of that. It's weird and cringe, and not me at all.

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So anyway, I'm kidnapping you for a drag show next week. You should perform!

Starcraft is often compared to chess, and while there are ways it doesn't hold up, a lot of the reason for the PTR changes right now is similar to chess's discussion about staleness and dynamic strategy. Yes, the PTR is shaking things up, but ignoring bugs and potential balance tweaks, there is a lot of concern that it will just resolve into a new meta with a single best strategy every time. If changes from the PTR go live, it would just be a matter of a few months to a year before the game got stale again, or so the narrative goes.

In chess, Bobby Fischer, a former world champion, began to advocate randomizing the back row (with limitations) in order to promote creativity in play rather than the memorization of openers. Specifically, there are 16 cases of bishop placement, 15 cases of knight placement, 4 cases of queen placement, and one case for each of those where rook-king-rook are allowed to be placed. 16 x 15 x 5 x 1 = 960 possible starting positions. Notably, the starting position is mirrored for the opponent, and I think it's critical for Starcraft to apply the same philosophy.

So, to "promote creativity in play rather than the memorization of openers," perhaps Starcraft can apply some randomized starting conditions.

* Randomized starting workers. (11 cases; equal weight). A random number of starting workers from 6 to 16.

* Randomized supply. (3 cases). The game can start as default (high chance), with one depot/pylon/overlord (medium chance), with 2 depots/pylons/overlords (low chance).

* Randomized extra town hall (2 cases). A low chance that a command center/hatchery/nexus spawns at the natural expansion, though with no workers.

* Randomized gases (3 cases). A high chance no refineries/extractors/assimilators spawn; a medium chance that one spawns inside the main; a low chance both geysers are covered

* Starting production (2 cases). A low chance of starting with a barracks/gateway/pool. Because the pool is effectively 100 extra minerals, including the drone, and early pool is dangerous to others' health, terran/protoss gain 2 marines / 1 zealot in this case. Although it's possible for Protoss to spawn without a pylon here, it's kinda funny and every race is handicapped by low supply if it happens.

* Starting units (3 cases). A low chance to start with 200 minerals worth of basic units (marine/zergling/zealot). A very low chance to start with 400 minerals worth of basic units. Although it could be programmed to align with extra supplies, I'd be fine with allowing the randomness to start players on a supply block and making them deal with it.

* Starting defense (2 cases). A low chance to start with a detecting static defense structure (turret/spore/cannon) in the main base's mineral line. Although there's a chance the cannon would be unpowered depending on pylon roll, I think it's fine for part of the strategy to be deciding when to power it.

* Starting upgrade structure (2 cases). A low chance to start with engineering bay/evolution chamber/forge.

Despite not having an equal weight on each possibility, I count 11x3x2x3x2x3x2x2 possibilities equaling 4,752 starting conditions. If we assumed the default to be 80% in the 2-case options and 60% in the 3-case options, then 8.8% of games would still be like we know already, just with random starting number of workers. But the range would be large, with some games having a full early game built out already if everything gets rolled.

Obviously, this is not hard and fast. I deliberately didn't choose numbers on the percentage chances of each case for a reason. If the community could get on board with ideas like this, it might be enough to make it into a real patch. I think the team at Blizzard (however many it is who also work on Heroes of the Storm) watches what we talk about here on reddit and on other social media, so if a lot of people like it and want to try it, there's a possibility it could end up on the next PTR, however far away that is.

For some reason, the ending of this show really impacted me a lot more than other shows, even ones that have run longer and where I felt a stronger personal connection to during its running.

It's story about being connected to others. It's about overcoming a cycle of hate and vengeance and, at the very end, being able to enjoy the love of living, with others.

I guess I don't need a different ending, but there is an implied ending I wish we saw. Under the tree on the grassy hill, I wish instead of focusing on the city, it focused on the people. All the surviving characters, coming back several times over their lives. And we see them with their partners, their children. We see them loving life; having picnics, throwing a ball, playing music, laughing and joking. And finally, see them old, surrounded by the people who love them. It's the ending I imagine, anyway. Having a long life and being free like they always fought for, and having the connection that Ymir Fritz always longed for.

Disclaimer for sorry to air my personal therapy issues after this point. You can stop reading now if you want.

So afterward, I walked out to the nearby park, sat on a bench, and had a long cry. I wanted to participate in that expression of loving life, but I have no one to share it with. Several months ago, I left a narcissist after 5.5 years. She made sure to take away my job and my friends with her. The cycle of vengeance is still alive with her. I have family in another country, in a place where people like me are treated something like Eldians in Marley.

I feel a mix of joy and sadness. Joy from knowing life is good and being able to access what is good in life for now. But sadness at having no one to share it, at not being accepted by most people simply for who I am.

I know showing the tree of Ymir is supposed to make us think of a sequel or at least renewing the cycle in the canon. But I think it's better without it. The story were the characters, and their lives went on in peace. As I hope we all should be able to.

Context: not US. Literally third world country

I (MTF) contacted my endocrinologist office because we ordered my next estrogen 31 days ago. I'm down to 9 pills left, and they said, "sorry for the delay, it'll be here in 7 to 14 days." I'm supposed to take 2 pills a day. This isn't DIY. I have a real prescription. Just frustrating dealing with this besides all the other problems right now. Currently unemployed because my job found out I was trans and fired me for it.

Update: through a combination of a local trans friend and AI, I was able to find some grey market estrogen on a local shopping app. It should be enough to bridge the gap between prescriptions.

I have been interviewing for a few weeks now. I've been talking with a litany of recruiters who have a genuine interest in getting me hired somewhere (this is not US, so not all the same BS applies). I keep a spreadsheet of how this process is going, and I log all interviews in the spreadsheet and my phone calendar. I'm up to 214 applications in the last 30 days since I started, and 21 interviews.

An interview had been scheduled for 10am. I scheduled an interview with a different recruiter for 8am. Both recruiters' names are feminine names starting with E.

The 10am interview gets rescheduled for 9am. Except ... it was originally 11am in a timezone one hour off from me, and the meeting link marks the start time at the *host's* location. When it rescheduled for 9am, part of my brain registered it MY 9am, and the other part of my brain registered it as the same interview as the 8am one. So I edited my phone calendar to be at 9am.

To clarify, both of these are online, using the same platform. I was perfectly in line to say the time wouldn't work and one of them needed to change, but I didn't catch it.

The day comes and I go into the not-rescheduled interview. It's going alright, then my phone lights up with the other recruiter calling to ask why I'm not in the meeting link. I tell the first employer something is important *about* another interview (not that IFU by scheduling two at once), and she says I "cheated" the interview and ended the call.

So I go into the second one, and I hear the recruiter apologizing profusely on my behalf in the local language and the interviewer is also clearly pissed. I give my pitch, but the employer is not impressed. I'm frazzled and not doing my best anyway.

I've been interviewing poorly, and I was hopeful with these two that I've become more wise to the market and put more effort into my demos. But all for naught. I have no more interviews scheduled at this time, and I've pretty much applied to every open job in the country. FML

TL;DR, two online interviews. One rescheduled, and I didn't realize it was at the same time as another interview. The one I was on time for hung up as soon as I said there was an important call I needed to take care of. The other was unimpressed by my lateness and frazzled demeanor.

* SCV, marine, marauder: fully contained and airtight metal suits.

* Hellion: enclosed car with rubber tires

* cyclone, tank, thor: also enclosed metal vehicles

* Widow mine: lightning fries the electronics. Understood. 👍✅️

* Ghost: not a fully metal suit. Shockable.

* Reaper: not grounded, not fully enclosed metal

* all flying units: not grounded. Vulnerable to lightning

Or, if it really is just a mental attack and not physical energy, why wouldn't brainless units like the widow mine, raven, and MULE be immune?