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writing-in-april · 4 years ago

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Cinematic Coincidences

Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader

(Spencer’s POV)- listen I just love his POV lol

Summary: Spencer can’t bring himself to go on another date that’s been set up for him- so he stands his date up. Spence seemingly can’t catch a break and runs into the date he stood up.

A/N: Hey heyyy- here’s my seventh fic for my 30 fics in 30 days for April!! This one was requested by @andiebeaword (I added a reference for your love of hallmark movies in this hehe)- this is the original request- I tweaked the characters involved just a small bit lol I accidentally end up defaulting to using the people on the dream team lol- im going to start working in later characters in the show into some stuff in upcoming works (I’m also rewatching the later seasons so that’ll help get me inspired) Im always looking for feedback on my fics or really to talk about anything with my followers so feel free to drop into my inbox- here!! Thanks for reading- y’all have been so sweet 🥰 and hope y’all enjoy!!

Warnings: Insecure Spencer, Getting stood up for on a date, Morgan and Garcia (just the team in general) not really understanding Spencer fully, one tiny sexual innuendo- I think that’s it nothing too bad this time around

Main Masterlist Word Count: 2.4K

This was not what I wanted to be doing today. Garcia had once again inquired about my love life- along with Morgan of course, wanting to find out about all the juicy details. I didn’t know why they continued to ask when it was obvious that my love life was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

I gave my normal response to these types of inquiries, brushing them off without sounding too hurtful. Unfortunately Garcia would not be satiated by my response, apparently she was now fed up with my dull love life and felt like she needed to be personally involved. Garcia was very near and dear to me, just like Morgan, but I couldn’t deny that this grated my nerves.

“We’ll make you a dating profile too! Maybe you’ll find someone cute to date- or maybe get some?!” Garcia was chipper as usual, with her eyebrows wiggling at her suggestion that I should have a one night stand. All that I felt from her words was dread.

The dangers of online dating swirled in my mind and I tried to protest, it came out more like a stammer though. Morgan then patted me on the back and piped up, giving his own opinion, “Yeah- I think it’ll be good for you, pretty boy.”

Again I wanted to protest, beginning to stammer out another reason why I didn’t think it was a good idea. I sighed heavily when I was cut off again, by Morgan and Garcia already planning on what pictures they were going to upload of me. At least I knew that they had my best interests at heart, they wanted me to be happy with someone- or get some like Garcia had mentioned earlier. Still, it didn’t change the fact that there was no way I’d ever want to go willingly on a date with someone I had met on the internet.

—-

My thoughts had not changed since Morgan and Garcia had set up the dating profile for me. There hadn’t been any person I had been on a date with that had successfully been able to keep me interested beyond a few conversations.

“No luck with the online dating?” Morgan had teased when I had walked in with my head held low. This endeavor was just making me realize how picky and undesirable I was. Why couldn’t I just find someone pretty and be happy with it?

Morgan’s face twisted from a smile into a frown when I didn’t answer him, making my way silently to my desk.

For the rest of the day the team tiptoed around me, sensing my sadness. There was part of me that was angry at them for thinking that I couldn’t handle a few bad dates. But, they were right. I couldn’t handle the sting of rejection or the disappointment of a date that didn’t live up to my expectations.

Emily always seemed to know how to cheer me up, so I did attempt some small conversation in the break room while we were both getting our coffee. She never gave me any pity like the others who just flashed me sad looks, unwilling to make any effort to help- or like Garcia and Morgan, they helped in the wrong way even if their intentions were pure.

Her solution to my problem did make my ears perk up a bit, “Hey- I saw that you’ve been down and that it’s been about the online dating Morgan and Garcia made you get into.” I nodded my head in confirmation then gesturing for her to continue while I poured copious amounts of sugar into my drink. Emily opted for mostly cream instead of sugar, stirring her coffee a little, then continuing her thought,”I wondered how you would feel about being set up on a blind date. It’s someone I know so maybe that would make you feel better about going on it? Instead of having to deal with technology that I know you despise.”

Emily had a way of seeing exactly how I was feeling and not just spitting out facts without solutions like the others. Her solution made me nervous of course, there would probably never be a date that I wouldn’t be nervous for. However, this option made me feel a little bit more hopeful about my prospects in the dating pool. It was someone that she knew and trusted enough to suggest them as a potential match for a coworker. Emily didn’t trust easy, I could trust her judgment on this despite my nerves.

I gulped down a large sip of my overly sweetened coffee, collecting my thoughts before then answering, “Alright- I’ll go.”

—

The date that I was supposed to go on was at a quaint cafe near work. Emily had even made the effort to make sure that I had been there before so I might be more comfortable.

At first I had been extremely excited for the date, even going so far as to pick out my outfit. I would have worn my purple button up, that was the one I got the most compliments in. Emily had told me some stuff that my date was interested in so I made sure to brush up on my knowledge by reading about the topics. I had even called back to the restaurant menu in my mind, preparing myself by picking out what I wanted beforehand. On one of my dates set up through the dating app I had stumbled on my choice for food, making the person unnecessarily snappy. I had to cover all my bases to minimize potential awkwardness on my part.

Self doubt began to creep in after I had gotten fully dressed. I had gotten ready way too early in anticipation for the date, now sitting on my couch tapping my foot impatiently. I looked at my watch that sat over my long sleeves watching the clock tick closer and closed to when I was supposed to leave.

Biting my lip in worry, my mind couldn’t help but wander over into my self doubts. I couldn’t help but ask myself why anyone would want to date someone as tall and lanky as me- or why would someone want to go on a date with someone that couldn’t keep their mouth shut about random topics that no one cared about.

My self doubt swallowed any confidence that I had begun to build up in preparation for the date. I knew Emily would be furious with me tomorrow when I went into work, I didn’t want her to find out through her friend though. Deciding to get it over with I pulled out the phone I never used and texted her, telling her that I wasn’t coming. I told her to give my regrets to my date, who at this point was probably waiting patiently for me at the cafe. Sighing in defeat I then retreated into my bedroom again, crawling under my covers.

——

Emily hadn’t been furious with me- well that was a lie, at first she had stomped up to me the next morning to chew me out. She became more disappointed than anything when she found out my reasonings. She hadn’t mentioned anything about how the person I was supposed to be going on the blind date with felt. Not that I really wanted to hear about it, it would only make me feel worse. All I got from her was a small remark mumbled under her breath, “Idiots- the both of you…”

For the next few weeks I tried in vain to push thoughts of my failed blind date out of my head. I had avoided going in the general direction of the cafe. Luckily I took the metro everyday to work otherwise I’d have to drive by it every day, and I already hated driving.

I was at the bookstore for used booksjust around the corner from the cafe that was supposed to hold my date a few weeks ago. This was the closest I dared to go near it in a while. Since then I hadn’t been able to go there anymore, even though I loved the coffee there. Immense guilt had wormed its way into my brain when I had tried to order something there a week ago. All I had done was stammer at the cashier before bolting out of there, just another addition on the list of embarrassing things that I’ve done in my life.

I was flipping through an old edition of pride and prejudice out of boredom, there hadn’t been anything interesting stocked on the shelves since I had last been here. Then a voice piped up through the air that had a bit of dust flying through it,

“Excuse me, sir- if you’re still looking at that book would you mind if I looked at the ones on the shelf behind you?”

It took me a second before I realized the person was talking to me. I then removed my eyes from the book to blink up at them a few times, then registering what they had said to me and moved out of the way.

Their eyes were still glued to mine, the bookshelf behind me that they had wanted to look at forgotten. An awkward chuckle was all we both could seem to manage as we looked each other up and down. Emily had shown me a picture on her phone of my date so I would have been able to spot them at the restaurant. My cheeks flushed hard once I realized who was standing before me. There was no doubt who this was, the date I had stood up the night before.

Silence then fell between us and not the pleasant kind, it was most definitely awkward. I couldn’t imagine how they must have been feeling after I hadn’t shown up last night. They probably had sat

“Um- hi…” They spoke hesitantly, wringing their fingers in trepidation. My jaw opened and closed a few times, trying to come up with anything to say.

“Hi!” Was all I could manage to squeak out, plus a small wave in their direction.

They wrung their fingers a few more times, seemingly trying to come up with a response. I was surprised they hadn’t hit me with one of the books near them out of anger. It would be a normal response to being stood up for a date, the trepidation and silence just served to unnerve me further. Eventually they spoke again, saving me from anymore awkward silence which in my opinion was worse than awkward conversation, “Um- sorry for um, standing you up uh- a few weeks ago.”

That made my eyes bug out of my head- they had done the exact same thing as I had? Insecurity soon swept in, trying to tell me exactly why they had not shown up without hearing their side of the story. I looked down at the book I was holding, reading a few words for a moment of reprieve. Taking a deep breath I asked quietly, not admitting to my own faults yet, “W-why did you um- not go? If you don’t mind me asking…”

A deep sigh was what I got at first, one that obviously had a lot of stress in it. They then did provide me with an explanation, despite their obvious embarrassment, Well- It had nothing to do with you- a simple explanation would be saying it was my insecurity’s fault.”

Not that I would ever want anyone to feel insecure, but I would admit that them saying that did make my own stress melt away. They had not gone for almost the exact same reasons that me. I decided to be upfront, giving them my own reasoning- though I wasn’t even sure they realized that I hadn’t gone as well. “I don’t know if Emily told you, but I um- stood you up as well. It wasn’t because of anything bad! It was really for the same reason as you.”

They then broke out into giggles after they had processed my words for a second, which were much more relaxed than the awkward ones from before. I didn’t blame them, it was a pretty funny coincidence that we’d both stand each other up only to run into each other not knowing what we had done.

“I feel like we’re in one of those cheesy Hallmark movies right now…” Their comparison only confused me, I had no clue what they were talking about.

“What’s a Hallmark movie?” More giggles came from them at my questioning, though for once I didn’t feel like I was being laughed at. I felt like they were laughing at the whole situation, not at me specifically like so many people had often done. Also, I couldn’t help but admit to myself that their giggle was very cute.

Once their giggles had subsided a little they asked me something that almost no one would ask the person that had stood them up, “Maybe I could tell you over a coffee? If you want to of course- Emily told me about how much sugar you like in it.”

My interest was peaked, making me further regret having stood them up in the first place. Though I tried to push that thought out of the way considering we had both done the same thing. It was time to let that go so I could go on a date with them finally. Seeing them in person and being able to glimpse part of their personality made me want to know more.

“Alright- sure.” I set down the book I had been passively reading, now completely disinterested in it. There was something far more interesting in front of me now compared to a classic book I had read over ten times.

We both walked around the corner, to the cafe that we had originally had our date scheduled at. Conversation flowed easily between us, showing me that Emily had been totally right to set us up initially. Her words now made sense to me, we were both a couple of idiots.

We then got our coffee, which had been much smoother of a transaction compared to the last time I had been here. I took note of how much sugar and cream they liked, just in case we were going to do this again. Sitting down at the closest booth I then asked, “So tell me about Hallmark movies?”

Ask Me Anything

—-

Tag lists (Message me if you want to be added):

All works: @shotarosleftpinky @oreogutz @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar @s1utformgg @takeyourleap-of-faith 😡😡😡

All MGG characters: @muffin-cup @willowrose99

Spencer Reid/CM: @calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss @slutforthegubes @onlyhereforthefanfics @jareauswifey

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler fluff #matthew gray gubler #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #mgg #mgg x reader #30 fics in 30 days

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years ago

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Long Way From Home: Chapter 11

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Friendship Characters: Scott, Tracy Family

I... totally forgot to update last week. Oops. Lab time’s started so uni got a little distracting. Also you guys seemed to love the hoodie thing so I figured that had you satisfied for a little while :P (if you haven’t seen it, @louthestarspeaker did some amazing art for that!)

No warnings for this chapter (wow, it’s been a while), unless you think Scott being a flirt needs a warning.

<<<Chapter 10

“So where are we going now?” Scott asked, changing the topic.

“Your call,” Other-Gordon shrugged, even though Scott was fairly sure he had a destination in mind from the way he was driving. There was no hesitation about their route. “We can take a break and get ourselves a bite to eat, or we can get the rest of the shopping done and find food after.”

Scott mentally ran through what they had left to get. “How likely are the paparazzi to hound us for the rest of the day?” he asked.

“Most likely they’ll be asking around what we were buying for a while,” Other-Gordon told him. “After that, it depends how interesting they find us, and if they can find us again.”

Scott drew the line at paparazzi squawking about his choice of underwear, and sighed. “Might as well get those underpants now, then,” he said.

“If you’re sure,” Other-Gordon said. He sounded dubious, but Scott glanced at him and saw concern, rather than disagreement.

“I’m sure,” he said firmly. “Unless you’re about to tell me I’ll need fittings for that because if that’s the case then I’m sticking with what I’ve got.”

Other-Gordon laughed. “Well, it’s lucky for all of us that there won’t be any fittings in the next shop, then,” he grinned. “Underpants, socks and pyjamas are all in the same place. We’re sticking with Scott’s usual haunts now,” he added. “Less for the paparazzi to get their teeth into.”

Scott swallowed, thankful for the heads’ up. Typically, sharp ginger eyes didn’t miss it.

“Say, we didn’t get to have that chat about a pattern yet, did we?” Other-Gordon commented. Scott sighed.

“I should be fine,” he said.

“Scott.” The disappointment was clear. “I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”

He was right but that didn’t stop Scott disliking it.

“If I’m expecting it, it’s fine,” he clarified, although Other-Gordon’s raised eyebrow said things were still as clear as mud.

“Expecting what.” It wasn’t a question, but an expectation, and Scott sighed.

“People that know your brother,” he admitted. “The paparazzi, being recognised in the streets… they’re one thing. That’s fine.”

“It’s people who know Scott,” Other-Gordon finished for him. Scott nodded. “That explains Madeleine, but not George. Jones… We weren’t with him long enough for him to notice anything?” Scott nodded again. “So, George is the opposite? We were with him too long?”

“Something like that,” Scott agreed. “He saw when I slipped and tried to use the catalogue like I would at home.”

Other-Gordon made a noise that sounded a little like a suspicion had been confirmed.

“I don’t know for sure if it’ll help,” he said. “But try to remember two things.”

Scott looked over at him again and resisted the urge to tell him to put both hands back on the wheel as one fist raised, a single finger extended.

“First, outside the airport no-one here knows Scott that well. Certainly not well enough to notice any small differences. Even your voice might not be enough to raise most people’s suspicions, that’s mostly a precaution. They’re not going to see one small slip and peg you as an imposter. Scott doesn’t go shopping much, and he prefers going to Kansas or New York for the most part. Auckland’s only for short day trips. Anyone acting familiar outside of the airport is doing exactly that. They’re acting.” A second finger raised. “Secondly, you’re Scott Tracy. You might not be my Scott, but you’re still Scott Tracy. Have a little faith in yourself.”

“Aren’t you watching me and logging all the differences between us?” Scott asked, and Other-Gordon rolled his eyes. He did, thankfully, at least put his hand back on the wheel.

“That’s how I know you can pull this off,” he said. “There are differences, but they’re ones I see because I’m family. Tom, Dick and Harry aren’t going to notice a jot.”

“George did.”

“George saw you doing something weird,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “No more catalogues, no more swishy fingers.”

“Swishy fingers?”

“You looked like you were conducting an orchestra,” Other-Gordon told him bluntly.

Okay, Scott could see that.

“Hold your head high and pretend you own the place,” the ginger advised. “We won’t be in this shop long.” He pulled into another car park, next to a sleek building advertising Outstanding Private Garments for the Gentleman. “But if that doesn’t work, remember four for Four,” he added. “Three if you just need some space.”

Despite himself, Scott found himself grinning. “Three for Three, four for Four,” he repeated. “I can remember that.” Associating the numbers with Thunderbirds was simple, but definitely effective.

“Whatever helps you remember,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “But like I say, we shouldn’t be in here long. Ready?”

In answer, Scott plucked at the lever in the side of the door, letting it open. Other-Gordon took the hint.

The inside of the shop was much more like Lemaires’, if less filled with customers, than the workshop store had been. The class difference was painfully obvious, and Scott found himself wondering why rich meant stuffy here. It was going to be a relief when he could shuck off Other-Scott’s clothes – still too smart for Scott’s liking even if it was clearly supposed to be casual wear – and put on something that fit his own definition of casual.

Not-Dad could scowl about undone buttons and rolled up sleeves all he wanted, but if Scott was going to suffer being in a different universe, he’d at least do so comfortably.

A salesman headed over to them, apparently drawn like a magnet to the sniff of money, and Scott contentedly stayed back as Other-Gordon repeated their spiel about a lost voice and explained what they were after.

You’re Scott Tracy. It almost mirrored Not-Dad’s departing message remember you’re a Tracy, and Scott wondered if this was what the older man had meant. He threw a grin in the salesman’s direction when the man looked at him, kept his back straight and hands – both of them – in his pockets.

Just doing that made him feel like he really did belong there. It was a dangerous thought, and Scott quickly clarified to himself that by there he meant in the shop, and not in this universe, because he certainly did not belong in the latter and couldn’t wait to get home.

As the man led them down aisles, presumably towards the underwear Other-Gordon had specified, he caught a look of approval from the ginger.

It wasn’t much, just a brief curl of the corner of his mouth and a split second of eye contact out of the corner of his eye, but it lifted a weight Scott hadn’t noticed settling on his chest.

He could do this. It was just some clothes.

Some clothes in a different universe and subsequently different fashions. Apparently this universe had not yet discovered his preferred style, or at least didn’t offer them for Gentlemen. He pointedly ignored Other-Gordon watching him even as he nattered away to the salesman, no doubt keeping him distracted, and mentally ran through the options in front of him.

Comfort and practicality were both important, and it was with that in mind that he made his selection, hoping he wouldn’t notice the difference too much when he was wearing them. He didn’t know how often they did laundry, but in a vain hope he wouldn’t be in this universe for too long, he grabbed a week’s worth before turning back to the other men.

Other-Gordon’s face betrayed nothing about his selection, but he did obligingly prod the salesman into leading them to the socks.

Once again, fashion differences made themselves known as trainer and ankle socks seemed to be entirely absent from the choices, leaving Scott with the simple choice of what pattern he wanted on the calf-high woollen offerings. They reminded him more than a little of soccer socks, and he kept half an eye on Other-Gordon as a yellow pair found their way into the selection amongst the blues, whites and blacks. To his frustration, the ginger seemed to have pulled on a poker face, no doubt anticipating that Scott would try and throw him again with colour selection.

Still, even that gave him some sort of sense of normalcy, which in turn kept him calm and focused on what they needed to do, and not what anyone else was thinking of him. Other-Gordon keeping up a stream of chatter with the salesman – whose name Scott realised he still hadn’t caught – was enough to quell the last of the what-ifs, and even selecting a few pairs of pyjamas was much less of a trial than it could have been.

Even if Scott really wished he could just wear a tatty old t-shirt and shorts like he defaulted to at home. Unfortunately, Gentlemen apparently wore sleeping shirts made of cotton with matching full-length trousers, much like the ones he’d woken up in earlier that morning, and once again had a limited selection that seemed to mostly vary in the shape of the collar and length of the arms.

Assuming that this universe’s Tracy Island tended towards the same temperatures as his home, he opted for mostly thinner, short-sleeved choices, and ignored the many patterned ones in favour of plain where he could. Blue, yes, but there was also dark grey and another red and black chequered pattern he couldn’t bring himself not to choose.

Amber eyes narrowed at the final selection, Other-Gordon logging it and no doubt wracking his brain for anything that might be inspiring his now second choice for that combination. Scott was mostly hopeful he wouldn’t figure it out, but the other man had proven himself to be extremely sharp. There was always a chance he would.

“That seemed like it went better,” the ginger commented once the clothes were paid for and they were back in the car. The engine purred, although the car was still in neutral and Other-Gordon was leaning back in the seat. Scott hoped the fuel was as carbon neutral here as it was at home.

‘Went better’ wasn’t a hard thing to surmise, considering it was the first shop Scott hadn’t had a full-blown panic attack in – or any real panic at all. “What helped?”

They had one shop left to go, by Scott’s estimation, and no doubt he was going to have to interact with strangers again for it. Even at home, shoe shopping still required checking they fit, so he didn’t dare hope it would be avoidable here. After the reprieve of the relatively easy experience he’d just had, he hoped he could hold it together long enough to get a couple of pairs of sneakers.

“No fittings,” he said dryly when Other-Gordon cleared his throat meaningfully. “It was easier to ignore everyone else.”

“That’s not going to be possible when we get the shoes,” Other-Gordon reminded him, and he sighed.

“I know,” he said. “But I can handle it.”

“Do you want that café break now?”

Scott shook his head. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Putting it off won’t make it easier.”

“If you’re sure,” Other-Gordon replied, but there was no dubiousness in his tone this time. Scott suspected he wasn’t the only one relieved at the success in the latest shop. The ginger shifted the car into drive and then they were rolling out onto the streets again. “How many shoes are you thinking of?”

“Two should be enough,” Scott shrugged. “Both sneakers.”

“No sandals?” Other-Gordon looked surprised. Scott shook his head again.

“I won’t need those,” he said. “Two pairs of sneakers will be plenty.”

“Well, I suppose you can always steal Scott’s shoes if you end up needing anything else,” the other man mused. “You’ll need protective boots before you get in the hangars properly,” he added, “but we can’t get those here.”

“I have protective boots,” Scott reminded him.

“Only when Brains isn’t prodding at them,” Other-Gordon pointed out. “I didn’t look at your boots that closely but they looked weird.”

“I’m almost certainly going to think the same thing about yours when I see them properly,” Scott shrugged. “They’re protective enough. Not quite as heavy duty as Virgil’s, but they’re still superior to steel caps.”

“Sounds useful,” Other-Gordon commented. “We’re here.”

That had been a considerably shorter drive than any of the others. Scott made to get out of the car, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

“Scott got new sneakers recently,” Other-Gordon warned him. “So the chaps here will remember him.”

The pressure that had lifted with the last shop made its return known with a vengeance, and Scott grit his teeth. The hand on his arm tightened, grounding him, and he glanced over at Other-Gordon.

“Will it help if I go over the story with you now?” the ginger asked, serious eyes meeting his through the shades. “Remember, they might remember him, but they don’t know him. Behave like you did in the last shop and everything will be fine.”

“The story?” Scott asked, taking a deep breath.

“That you like them enough to want more,” Other-Gordon clarified. “As for your hand; you slipped over by the pool and grazed it.”

Scott hadn’t even considered his hand, and that he’d need to be using it.

“Scott, are you okay to go in or do you want that café break first?” Other-Gordon asked, seriousness laced all through the words. Scott swallowed. Instinct told him he was going to struggle, but his pride rebelled at the idea of running away.

His lack of an immediate answer seemed to be all Other-Gordon needed as he shoved the car back into drive.

“Wait-” Scott protested as he realised they were leaving. Sharp amber eyes looked at him.

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

Breakfast? Scott blinked, caught out by the question.

“All you’ve had since you got here was Grandma’s apple pie,” Other-Gordon continued. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel mighty peckish, and I had a nice, leisurely breakfast after my swim this morning.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, Scott realised the churning in his stomach might not be entirely looming panic. He didn’t actually remember breakfast. There was that early morning call-out; he’d chugged a coffee during John’s briefing then gone to pluck the climber from the mountain, and then returned home with the intent of catching a couple more hours of sleep before properly facing the day.

Food, he realised, hadn’t featured at all. He’d left One, somehow fallen through a universe collision, and then ended up here.

“Coffee,” he eventually answered.

“And?”

Scott shrugged. “Early morning callout. Bed was the plan when I got back.”

“Hold on a moment,” Other-Gordon said. “You’re telling me that slice of apple pie’s the only thing you’ve eaten in… how long?”

“I ate dinner last night,” Scott defended himself.

“Gee.” Other-Gordon shook his head. “That settles it. We’re going to a café and you’re going to eat.”

Scott didn’t have an argument for that one, and his stomach made its agreement known by grumbling at him suddenly. Other-Gordon laughed.

“We’ve got all day,” he reminded him. “We can take our time, remember?”

Scott sighed, but knew when he was beaten. “You got a place in mind?”

“A few,” Other-Gordon said. “Say, you don’t have any allergies, do you?”

“Nothing I’m aware of,” he assured him.

“In that case,” the ginger said. “The Nine Bells has some private booths and a good menu.”

The name wasn’t familiar to Scott, but he hadn’t spent much time in Auckland for the sake of sight-seeing – or shopping – so he didn’t know if it didn’t exist in his universe or if he’d just never had cause to go near it.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, and Other-Gordon shot him a grin.

“They serve apple pie,” he promised, and Scott rolled his eyes. Even he’d noticed Other-Scott’s fondness for the food, so it was no surprise at all that Other-Gordon had his favourite dessert pegged already. “And their coffee’s good.”

“What about their tea?” Scott asked, keeping a straight face as he got the double-take reaction he was hoping for.

“You drink tea?” Other-Gordon asked. Scott shrugged.

“Only in England.”

Other-Gordon huffed, and Scott let the threatening grin creep onto his face. “I should have seen that coming,” the ginger grumbled. “You’re terrible.”

“I’m a big brother,” Scott shrugged. “Can’t let the younger ones win all the time.”

“Definitely a Scott,” Other-Gordon muttered, shaking his head. “Let’s get some food in you.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Scott agreed. Now that he was aware of the gnawing hunger, it clearly had no intentions of letting him forget about it.

The rest of the drive passed in silence, and Scott let himself properly look out at the streets as they drove through. Much of it was unfamiliar to him; shop fronts were styled differently, and there were no holograms lighting up sales as they tried to entice customers to browse. That was no doubt entirely due to the difference in technologies, although he was getting the impression that even society seemed to be subtly different at times.

If Other-John and Other-Brains couldn’t find a quick way to get him back and he was stuck here for a while until they figured it out – and they would figure it out, because Scott couldn’t afford to think otherwise – he was going to have a lot to learn even though he doubted he’d be leaving the island much, at least not as Scott Tracy. If he was going to be living here for a while, he was definitely going to get involved in International Rescue somehow.

He couldn’t imagine sitting back and watching others do what was his job without stepping in to help, and inaction was never his style.

“Everything alright?” Other-Gordon asked suddenly. “You’ve gone quiet.”

Scott shrugged. “Just thinking,” he answered, not looking away from the passing buildings.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Scott rolled his eyes. Some things transcended universes, apparently.

“Penny for your thoughts?” the ginger continued. Scott wondered if he was worried he was spiralling again.

“Just about-” he cut himself off, remembering that even if they were in the car they were out in public – a public that didn’t know about International Rescue’s identity. “The family business,” he hedged.

“Yours or ours?”

“Yours, mostly,” Scott admitted. “Where I’ll fit in.”

“Dad won’t say no,” Other-Gordon assured him. “It’s short-staffed for obvious reasons, but those don’t apply to you. I know the two of you aren’t seeing eye to eye right now, and I won’t lie – working out where you sit in the hierarchy is going to take a lot of compromise, mostly on your end – but if you’re going to be hanging around, you might as well make yourself useful.”

It was the second time Other-Gordon had confidently said he’d be able to join their International Rescue, although Scott was well aware there’d be a lot of difficulty fitting in.

He’d been Commander of his International Rescue longer than this International Rescue had been operating. But he didn’t know their technology, their limits and procedures. Even the jargon was different.

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” he said, and Other-Gordon laughed.

“No-one’s going to doubt that,” he promised. “You don’t do well sitting around, do you?”

“Another shared trait?” Scott assumed dryly. To his surprise, Other-Gordon shrugged.

“I think you’re worse for it,” he admitted. Startled, Scott looked away from the passing buildings to regard Other-Gordon again. “Scott doesn’t do well sitting around all the time, but that doesn’t stop him lounging for a few hours with the rest of us.” Amber eyes glanced over at him. “I get the feeling you’ve forgotten how to.”

That was getting dangerously close to Dad’s crash again, never mind the fact that Other-Gordon was right. His own brothers had got on his case about it enough for Scott to know he hadn’t relaxed in years. Not properly.

“I remember how,” he muttered, the words coming out more defensively than he’d intended.

“Something tells me you’re not going to be demonstrating that knowledge,” Other-Gordon challenged, once again right because he was entirely too sharp. Scott knew he wouldn’t be able to relax at all until he was home and knew his brothers were all safe and well. “I’m not going to stop you,” the ginger continued. “But don’t burn yourself out.”

“I won’t,” Scott promised.

Other-Gordon’s silence loudly proclaimed that he expected otherwise but knew better than to call him out on it. Scott appreciated it; that was a heavy enough conversation for his liking.

There had been a lot of those on this shopping trip, despite him choosing Other-Gordon to avoid them. It would have been so much worse if he’d come with anyone else.

Part of him wasn’t looking forwards to getting back, because then he’d have the whole island watching him again. He also, he realised, needed to apologise to Other-Virgil for brushing him off so abruptly, even if he was glad he’d stood his ground against Not-Dad.

Dealing with Not-Dad on a regular basis was definitely going to be the hardest part of this universe. Scott knew he was going to have to talk to the man, especially if he was going to join their International Rescue, but he looked just like Dad, and even now his chest hurt when he thought about it.

“We’re here,” Other-Gordon said, pulling into a car park in front of a large building that proclaimed The Nine Bells in a neat cursive. It looked fancy, but then Other-Gordon had said they offered private booths, which Scott was well aware they’d need.

He followed the ginger into the building, where they were promptly greeted by a waitress.

“Good afternoon, sirs,” she chirped. “A table for two?” Her eyes were firmly fixed on him, and he knew he was wearing shades but she was pretty cute so he sent her a wink and a grin anyway.

She flushed red. Good to know he still had it in another universe.

“A private booth, please,” Other-Gordon said, stepping forwards and – ow – onto Scott’s foot. Well, if he wanted him to be himself, then he was going to flirt with the pretty girls, regardless of whether or not he could talk.

“Of course,” she stammered, still looking at him rather than the Tracy that was actually talking to her. “This way.” Still bright red, and throwing glances at him over her shoulder, she slipped between the public tables until they came to a concealed privacy booth, no doubt for their richer customers. Scott supposed Tracys counted. She hovered as they both slid into seats, before placing menus in front of both of them – him first. He thanked her with another grin, and got a nudge in the shin from Other-Gordon.

“Would you like a jug of water?” she asked him. Other-Gordon jumped in with the affirmative, and she hurried off to get it.

“Must you flirt with the waiting staff?” the ginger asked after she was gone. Scott shrugged.

“She’s pretty,” he said. Other-Gordon rolled his eyes.

“If it makes you happier,” he sighed, and Scott definitely heard the underlying relief there that something was cheering him up.

“I’ll take the small victories where I can get them,” he confirmed, pulling the menu down in front of him. “I don’t suppose you’ll take her number for me?”

“Not under false pretences,” the other man retorted. Scott scowled; he had a point. Other-Gordon shook his head and grinned. “At least you’re looking happier.”

“Until you stole my fun,” Scott grumbled, but he knew Other-Gordon was right. He couldn’t flirt seriously with anyone while he was pretending to be Other-Scott.

“Just choose something from the menu,” Other-Gordon told him. “Several somethings, if this is really your first meal today. Grandma will have my hide if you pass out on me.”

“I’m not going to pass out,” Scott protested, but he looked at the menu anyway.

Food, it seemed, was the same across universes. It wasn’t much hassle to find something he liked – he’d never been a particularly picky eater, and from the amused looks on Other-Gordon’s face, the ginger could probably have ordered for him without even asking.

“The same?” he asked resignedly.

“Near enough,” Other-Gordon shrugged. “Coffee?”

The waitress reappeared before Scott could give a verbal answer, so he nodded as she set the water and two glasses down on the table.

“Are you ready to order, sirs?” she asked, once again fixed on him as she withdrew a notebook from her apron and held a pencil up, poised to write.

Rolling his eyes, Other-Gordon placed the order for both of them. She looked a little put out that Scott, for all his grinning, wasn’t actually saying a word to her, and clearly Other-Gordon wasn’t feeling like a generous enough wingman to tell her that he couldn’t talk.

She hovered for a moment longer after writing down the order, but Other-Gordon looked away from her in a clear dismissal, and Scott reluctantly followed suit, leaving her scurrying away a little disappointedly.

“Now I seem fickle,” Scott huffed once she was out of earshot. Other-Gordon looked amused, smirking in an annoying little brother manner.

“You’re telling me you’re not going to start smiling at the next pretty woman you see?” he asked. Scott rolled his eyes.

“That’s not the point,” he denied.

“I disagree,” Other-Gordon retorted. “Gee, you’d think they’d give the Olympic Champion the time of day, at least.”

“Not all the girls care about gold medals,” Scott smirked. It was Other-Gordon’s turn to huff.

“They do when there’s no tall dark and handsome winking at them next to me,” he muttered. “If there’s one thing that’s not so good about the job, it’s the secrecy.”

“It’s not worth the headache.” That, Scott could say for certain. “Trust me.”

“I’ll trust your grey hairs,” Other-Gordon agreed, and Scott scowled at him. He put his hands up. “I promised not to ask questions and I won’t,” he said. “But if there’s anything you want to know, I’m available.”

“Here?” Scott asked, glancing around at the café. The privacy booth at least meant he could talk, but he wasn’t so sure Not-Dad would approve of International Rescue being discussed there.

“Well, maybe not here,” Other-Gordon conceded. “But any time.”

It was a comforting offer, especially after their first conversation where the man had physically and verbally cornered him and refused to let him near any of the Thunderbirds.

We’re on the same side. The offer was an extension of that promise, and Scott nodded in acknowledgement.

“I still want that tour,” he said, and Other-Gordon laughed.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “I’ll have to clear it with Dad, but I’m positive I can convince him.”

That would be the first test to see if Not-Dad was, as Other-Gordon believed, going to be willing to let him join if they couldn’t immediately find a way to get him home. Scott really hoped Other-Gordon’s optimism was in the right place.

The younger man reached for the jug in the middle of the table and poured himself a glass before reaching for Scott’s. He pushed it closer with a nod of thanks and watched as it filled up before taking a drink. He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was until the liquid hit his throat, and before he’d realised it, the glass was empty.

Other-Gordon raised his own glass in a mimicry of a toast before taking his own draft.

“You’re not going to tell me the last drink you had was that tea you kept dropping, are you?” the ginger asked. Scott shook his head.

“Tin-Tin gave me coffee while we talked,” he said, grabbing the glass and pouring himself another measure before throwing that back as well.

“How did that go?” Other-Gordon asked. “Was it useful?”

“I think so,” Scott said, resting his elbow on the table and propping his chin on his hand. “Most of what we discussed were things you already knew. Otherwise, it was mostly technology differences.”

“Did she have any theories?” the other man asked, taking another drink of his water.

Scott shook his head.

“She just said she’d take it to your Brains,” he shrugged. “The others came back so we went back for the debrief.”

“Alan was mighty miffed with you then,” Other-Gordon commented. Scott had noticed. “I’m guessing he saw you two together?”

“We met him on the landing,” Scott confirmed. “He didn’t seem happy. Is there any particular reason he’s so…” He trailed off, trying to find a word to describe Other-Alan’s attitude in a way that wasn’t blatantly insulting.

“So Alan?” Other-Gordon asked. “Mostly it’s because he’s the youngest. Your Alan’s not like that?”

Scott scoffed. “If my Alan talked back like that he’d be grounded and he knows it. He’s younger than yours, but I’m not letting him grow up thinking he can get his own way all the time.”

“Aw, Alan’s not so bad,” the ginger said, clearly defending his younger brother. “Sure, he can be a bit of a pain, but he’s a little brother. Fame went to his head a bit after he kept winning races, and you didn’t make the best first impression on him by punching Scott, or breaking Dad’s nose.”

Scott sighed. “He wouldn’t tell me where my brothers were,” he explained. “Of course, at that point neither of us knew about this multiverse thing.” He eyed the younger man. “But by that logic, I didn’t make the best first impression on you, either.”

“You got that right,” Other-Gordon admitted. “You seemed too dangerous to let wander around, I’ll admit, but Grandma and Tin-Tin didn’t seem bothered by you and then Brains and John had their theory – which you near enough proved – and I figured I’d give you a chance, you know?”

“You interrogated me,” Scott corrected dryly. The other man shrugged.

“Details,” he dismissed. “You’re not so bad, you’re just out of your depth. Can’t say I blame you. I couldn’t say how I’d have reacted if it were me.” He paused for a moment. “How are you holding up?”

Scott huffed tiredly and ran a hand over his face, wincing when they snagged the shades he forgot he was wearing.

“Right now, I’m fine,” he said, his instincts rebelling against telling the truth – that the idea was enough to scare him, that he was terrified he couldn’t get home. Worried how his family were taking his disappearance. “Ask me again after it’s sunk in.”

“I’ll do that,” Other-Gordon promised, taking another drink from his glass. Amber eyes scanned him searchingly, and Scott met his gaze head-on, daring him to claim he wasn’t as fine as he was pretending.

If the ginger had noticed the façade, he didn’t comment. Then again, it was at that moment the waitress returned with a platter of sandwiches. At the sight and smell of them, Scott’s stomach growled loudly. The waitress was too shy to giggle, but he saw her eyebrows raise and he sent her a slightly sheepish grin before picking up one from the pile and toasting her with it.

Other-Gordon kicked him in the shins again. Scott ignored him.

“Your coffee will be ready in a moment,” she said, smiling at him with cheeks coloured a rosy blush. “Is there anything else I can get you right now?”

Your number, Scott thought, but Other-Gordon studiously avoided any eye contact with him as he dismissed the girl – without asking for her number, or explaining why he wasn’t talking. Little brothers were a nuisance whatever universe they were from, apparently.

Scott huffed at him once she was out of earshot and bit into the sandwich with a little more vigour than was strictly necessary.

Other-Gordon’s response was a mixture of exasperation and faint disapproval as he took his own pick from the platter to eat. “I told you, you’re not who she thinks you are,” he reminded him. “You can send all the flirty looks you want, I’m not asking for her number for you.”

“I know,” Scott sighed, swallowing the mouthful. “Oh, these are good.”

Other-Gordon grinned. “I told you the food here would be.”

“You did,” Scott acknowledged, polishing off the first one and grabbing another. He supposed that if he was going to be stuck in another universe for a while, at least there was good food.

The blushing waitress – whose name he never caught, but she didn’t offer it and Other-Gordon didn’t ask – kept coming back with more of their ordered food as they ate. The ginger devoured just as much as he did, proving he hadn’t been lying about his own hunger, and conversation was mostly dropped in favour of sustenance.

By the time the final dregs of Scott’s coffee were drained from the cup, he estimated they must have been there at least an hour, if not more. He still hadn’t figured out how to read the analogue dial on the watch, and was at loathe to ask while they were in public.

Still, he was conscious that there was still one shop left to go, and the sun’s steady march across the sky was unrelenting. They only had so much time, a fact supported by the way Other-Gordon checked his own watch before giving him a considering look.

“There’s an hour left until the shops close,” the ginger told him. “Do you want to give it another try, or should we head back to the island?” Scott raised an eyebrow at him. He was fairly sure the ginger knew what his answer was going to be.

Sure enough, he got a groan and a mutter about pushing yourself too hard, but Other-Gordon waved the waitress over for the bill without trying to change his mind.

Chapter 12>>>

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #long way from home

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cockbiteproductions · 4 years ago

Note

multiples of 8, except in the misc section. all even numbers for the misc section

200: My crush’s name is: well well well this question again. you’re not getting anything out of me!!! they fucking use this website!!!

192: I am allergic to: nothing. but i found out like yesterday not everyone gets dermatographia and im kinda annoyed. what do you mean your skin doesnt get red and puffy the moment you touch it......

184: Xbox or ps3: xbox solely because of ah

176: Last YouTube video watched: my watch history says this, which is a scene from a show called billions. this scene in particular is about my favorite character asking about their introduction scene with their former mentor figure that they quickly outranked and asking why they were picked for the internship that lead them down this [entire shitpath].

168: Luck: [long sigh]. [puts on clown makeup].

[obi wan voice] im my experience there’s no such thing as luck.

[rian voice] luck? there’s probability plausibility and actuality. luck is superstition. luck is lazy math. [winston voice] that’s what i always say.

160: Soul mates: again souls arent real..... nor do i believe that people are “meant for each other” on any sort of cosmic/larger level. you are more compatible with people based on your upbringing and your interests and your values and those are adaptable over time though some people are so different that they will never get along and other people match/complement each other incredibly well.

152: Phone or Online: lmaoooo this questionnaire once again showing its age. throwback to when these things weren’t synonymous. online for sure. what am i gonna do with a phone? talk to someone with my fucking voice? i think not.

144: Oranges or Apples: to eat by themselves? probably apples since they are easier and less of a mess. and apples are more consistently better than oranges. oranges, it’s easy to get a batch that just sucks. juiced? probably orange. i love me some fuckin orange juice. but i like apple cider more than orange juice.

136: Hillary or Obama: lmaoooo again.. the age of this. 2008 or 2012. going to guess 2008. obama but not like. enthusiastically. while he was certainly better than [what we got going on now] he still bombed the hell outta some countries......

128: Manicure or Pedicure: ive never had either but i would probably be more comfortable with a manicure. people touching my feet would make me ticklish.

120: Gay Marriage: the only type that should be allowed. sorry straights youre no longer allowed to get married. /s obviously.

112: Facebook: oh BOY are you fucking ready. are you???? im starting the readmore NOW because this is going to be something. i doubt anyone except robots maybe will actually read my deranged pro-privacy anti-facebook/social media/surveillance rant but im angry every time i think about it and if i were a more important person than a rando on the internet with a keyboard im sure facebook would hire someone to kill me one day.

FUCK FACEBOOK. FUCK THAT SHITTY ASS WEBSITE THAT AT EVERY TURN HAS BEEN REVEALED TO HAVE HORRIFYING PRACTICES OF DATA COLLECTION.

but before that, they need to pay some goddamn fucking taxes. they are profiting off the data of billions of people and getting away with paying SO LITTLE back.

you ever hear about deepface? no this is not the beginning of a prequel meme. deepface is facebook’s facial recognition technology and facial recognition is fucking terrifying. that shit is as good as humans at facial recognition at this point. does that not scare you? that a bunch of computers can figure out if this photo contains you or not? it’s one thing if humans recognize each other, but another thing when computers who can process data almost infinitely faster than humans can are able to do it. the scale and speed at which these fucking nightmares operates is hard for us to imagine and so we are all not scared enough of what they can do. this kind of technology is so deeply privacy violating it’s hard for me to stress it enough. every image of you ever uploaded on the internet could possibly be put through facial recognition tech. and with the fact that there are cameras literally everywhere at all times now at this point it’s so fucking possible that if desired, someone could find out where you are at all times. and that gets SO scary when used by governments. are you comfortable with your government knowing where YOU are at all times? yes? what about if tomorrow your government is overthrown by a group of radicals you completely disagree with? you still comfortable with that? facial recognition is kind of a fucking pandoras box that we are opening and now that we have the technology available to us, unless we actively take steps back from it, it WILL eventually/already is being used in malicious, intensely privacy invasive ways.

and everything in that above bullet point goes for ALL DATA COLLECTED ON YOU, EVER. everything you’ve ever said on facebook is probably put through some multi layered neural network fucking robot who is learning how to understand what humans say on your input and also cataloging things about you as a person. it is doing SO MUCH more than reading the exact text of what you are saying and then picking up on keywords. neural networks are an attempt to copy how humans think by making an artificial version of a brain basically. in simple terms it’s a map of points and connections and you feed it data for a while and tell it what the desired outcome should be. it will adjust those connections and the weight of those points based on your data and expected outcome. that change in connections and weights is how it learns. then after a while it has fed on enough data that it will begin to expect what your desired outcome is. now imagine millions and millions of connections and points. it’s fucking huge. you ever hear about how we don’t know how machine learning/deep learning/neural networks works? this is that. it’s because they are so large and they have changed their weights and points so much that we no longer understand how it makes its decisions. ml is on a deeper level starting to understand what you mean when you say words. like a human. and can pick up nuances humans cannot because of its perfect memory. do you understand how scary this is? do you? i really do not know how to express this better how absolutely buckshit wild and terrifying the idea that everything i say online can be scraped and put through a robot and a profile on me and who i am and my ideals can be gathered almost instantly. how hard would it be to write a scraper that goes to my blog and grabs the text of every post in my talk tag? and then there’s free and open source nlp software (or you can pay for it) and you can feed in everything ive said on this blog ever. you can go to my facebook. you can go to my twitter. you can find my profiles on every online platform ive ever used and take everything ive ever said and determine what kind of person i am based on that. and then you can then make further distinctions based on that data. (sidenote: facebook wouldnt have to scrape the data on my profile, it’s all in their databases already. they have everything ive ever posted on public or private, on my old profile i’ve deactivated, every photo ive posted or been tagged in, everything ive ever uploaded to their servers or have been associated with.) and someone or robot can make decisions about me based on that data. it could just be am i likely to buy [this product] or it could be something much more like am i a threat? am i dangerous to you, the person using this data about me? what are my politics? what are my views on [this topic]? are they too extreme? should i be denied [real life thing] based on what this machine has determined about me from my data online? not to sound fucking crazy, but you ever watch that episode of black mirror? nosedive? and its system where you can rate interactions with people? how this one girl was trying to increase her ranking so she would qualify for a cheaper price on housing? how we’re already starting to see things like this in real life with china’s social credit system?

call me a fucking wack job but i think it’s so deeply creepy that we have digitized so many aspects of our lives and leave machines we no longer understand how they make their decisions to analyze every bit of data about ourselves.

by the fucking way facebook tracks data on people WHO DO NOT USE FACEBOOK. FACEBOOK TRACKS DATA ON PEOPLE. WHO. DO. NOT. USE. FACEBOOK. are you scared? i am.

i’ve been thinking about this tweet from @/malwaretech on twitter from a few days ago. text: On a serious note, social media tracking is more extensive than you may think. For example: those Facebook 'like' buttons you see on every website? They call home. If you're logged into your FB account, it records that you visited that web page, even if you don't click 'like'. doesn’t that sound a lil fucked up to anyone else? that facebook knows that i visited that webpage even though i did not tell it? that it will use that data to build a better profile on what my interests are and that it will use that data to better sell ads to me? i’ll be honest i am unsure of if facebook sells that information to other vendors. i think that might be not allowed but i wouldn’t be surprised if that data somehow got into the hands of people who arent facebook.

the fact that for the longest time you could NOT get your data deleted from facebook? that even if you deactivated your account facebook would still keep all of that in their shit ass servers forever? as far as i know, that’s changed now, but i would not at all be surprised if the next day it was revealed that facebook was Actually Keeping all that info anyways

the fact that by default facebook’s privacy settings are set to allow anyone to see most info about you? just this whole opt out culture is so fucking wack. it should be opt in. your privacy settings should default on the MOST PRIVATE and it should be up to you to ACTIVELY SEARCH OUT how to change them to public. it is ON FACEBOOK to actively cultivate privacy but of fucking course they don’t.

lmao cambridge analytica politics russia brexit trump. i don’t have the energy to even open this fucking can of worms but i will say that again, another layer of deeply fucked up that political campaigns can use that data to try to coerce or influence elections.

do you remember when in 2019. yes twenty. fucking. nineteen. 2019. two thousand and nineteen. 2019. i dont know how more to stress how recent but late this is. 2019. facebook admitted that it and instagram were still. STILL. STILL. S T I L L. storing passwords as plaintext? meaning your password that is “password123ilovedogs” is stored AS “password123ilovedogs” in their database. it is STANDARD AND EXPECTED PRACTICE that websites store SECURE hashes of passwords (not like fucking. md5 or something) meaning you do a bunch of fucking “irreversible” math on the password and store that instead of the actual password itself. so the db would be storing “298!79v@w8W#R;3,f9jf” instead of your actual password. anyways face. fucking. book. was storing passwords as plain text. which means if they ever have a data breach on their passwords db then all that data inside will just be your actual goddamn password. your actual goddamn password. what the fuck? what the fuck? and we still use this website? we? me? i use this website daily? i use this website on a daily fucking basis and allow it to continue to collect information on me? im so goddamn angry.

the fact that now in this day and age you are considered weird for not having any social media? super fucked up. the fact that employers will check your social media and if you don’t have one that is somehow a red flag? weird as hell. why must we participate in the world’s largest data collection scandal ever just to be a member of society? i cannot choose to opt out. facebook collects data on me even if i do not have an account. society expects me to have some form of social media and if i do not then that i am the weird one for it. if you choose to live a life of trying not to be tracked it is almost impossible. can you live your life in modern society without an email address? without a smartphone or laptop? there is an expectation that every person is available to communicate with digitally and if you find the practice of data collection abhorrent and don’t want to use websites that do so, then you’re the weird one who has a LOT of society’s services unavailable to you.

im not going to even touch on the psychological effects that facebook and social media have on people other than to ONCE AGAIN, say they are very real and deeply fucked up.

by the way check out haveibeenpwned. enter your email and it’ll check against databases to see if your email has been on recent dumps. i have been. lately there have been a few older accounts of mine that have been breached and it’s terrifying.

fuck jesse eisenberg man he fucked over spiderman crazy

fuck faang. fuck big tech. fuck data collection. btw edward snowden is a hero. fuck all of this.

104: The future: man we’re in for it. i am not optimistic about it at all. too much tech progression / not enough foresight / expansion/globalization of the world / global warming / political and economic issues are all coming to a head to make the world a fucking disaster.

96: Changed a diaper: never done it! i am not around children often.

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: having a vague idea of where things are locally. im very bad with directions.

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: answered already.

84: People call me: yeesa, apparently. i have a fair amount of nicknames but i just call myself teresa.

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: sure haven’t though i deserve one

80: The first person i talked to today was: soph because she wakes up at a normal goddamn time so i’ll sometimes have a text from her from a few hrs ago

76: Right now I am talking to: milo and a discord server im in for a group of friends i made when i was applying to college. though i havent responded in quite a while since i went on my angry facebook rant.

74: I have/will get a job: well i HAD a job for the beginning of the summer when i was a TA but i do not any more as that was first summer semester only. hopefully in the fall i’ll have a job as a TA again but who knows. and then after that when i graduate i hope hope hope hope hope i will have a job lined up.

72: Today: woke up. made a plum smoothie. played minecraft. took a nap. here i am. it’s all very riveting.

70: Next Weekend: it’ll happen for sure. odds are i will be waking up and eating food and coming on the internet and chatting with friends and doing a bit of writing and trying to learn a bit more html.

68: The worst sound in the world: answered already.

66: People that make you happy: will roland lmao.

64: My friends are: well it’s basically the same people i tagged in my last post on people who make me happy.

62: My School: you tryin to doxx me? it’s alright. not the best for my major. and also stupidly trying to reopen for the fall because theyre greedy and idiots. it was like my 5th choice school but it is what it is.....

60: I lose all respect for people who: already answered

58: Your hair color is: black as fuck. im east asian.

56: Favorite web site: controversial but archive of our own dot org i guess. i believe in their mission and like how they have advocated for fans and have created a fan-owned space on the internet. they’re not perfect but i overall support them.

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: answered already

52: My room is: a time capsule of what i liked in late middle school/early high school.

50: Where would you like to be: im fine where i am. maybe visiting friends though. i would like to Hang With Them and Do Fun Activities.

48: Ever been in love: who’s to say....... what is love? (baby don’t hurt me). but for real the concept of love is weird to me, especially romantic love. i don’t know. i’ve certainly obsessed over people. i’ve noticed i kind of “pick people” to have crushes on. i can’t really say why. but then it creates a feedback loop of i pay more attention to them -> i think more about them -> i like them more. so i’ve made conscious decisions that have lead to me obsessing over people.

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girl but that’s just because people in fandom spaces tend to be women and most of my friends ive made through fandom.

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: kaity is coming to my town but we cant see each other because of a pandemic so im kinda fucking miffed about that. i didn’t get to see maria before she left my state so i’m also miffed about that.

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: lmaooooo no. i would just like to be satisfied with my life. would like to see friends. do fun things with them.

40: Last person I got mad at: idk im not generally a mad person. mark zuckerberg probably.

38: I wish I was a professional: as in i suddenly have all the skills and talent needed to be a professional? i think a director &|| writer tbh. i would love to have the Creative Vision necessary to come up with dope ideas AND translate what i have in mind into real life. i would love the ability to be able to tell compelling stories that mean a lot to people.

32: Athlete: lmao if it was 2008 or 2012 i would ahve said ryan lochte but nevermind. idk. maybe katie ledecky.

24: Movie: am not much one for movies...... star trek 2009.

16: Book: i don’t know how to read.

8: Yankee candle scent: idk about yankee candle specifically but i love the smell of apple.

#not rt #teresa answers stuff #Anonymous

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kvltprince · 5 years ago

Text

@omniblacklight asked me to do 5 8 9 and 16 and tumblr ate the ask before i finished the ask i was working on.

What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night?

Lucy: normally he wears his terrible rag-wrap skirt and tanktop thing, depending he will go slightly more disciple like for daily wear, or start piling on scarves/opt for the nuka jumpsuit in all its obnoxiousness it is still less “hi i am a raider” if he is playing nicely and the weather is appropriate. Dressing nicely is probably an operator outfit, hair down, smelling of hubflowers or something.

Austin: Those work overalls with the duct tape. Probably the triggerman outfit or something?

Roland: Wanderer duster or Ulysses’ duster, His Hat. Something that buttons up - probably also a triggerman outfit in all honesty, he looks good in operator outfits but thas too dressy for him.

Charlie: Leather jacket and jeans. Suit jacket and slacks, something with a blue tie probably

Annamarie: cropped leather studded jacket/tight pants or wrapped outfit. Either a super cute bright Summer Dress, or a black sequin dress.

Jereldo: Whatever he finds, honestly. Vaguely still tends toward leather jacket and jeans when it is an option and while among raiders, opts to be covered more than that otherwise. Black suit or leather jacket with something decent under it. Depending he will wear Benny’s suit (with black stuff under it) - he CAN dress himself he just chooses not to.

Phil: Buttonups/slacks/labcoat usually, not averse to the vault suit or whatever else. A black suit probably with a blue shirt perfectly matching his eyes and a silver tie.

How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?

(i dont really have voice claims for my ocs, but i might actually come across them more... i dont really listen to people a ton because i dont hear the best)

Lucy: Easy to talk to, rolls with forgetting words. Speed/volume/amount of flowery/symbolism/disjointedness is very reliant on his mental state. His voice is fairly smooth and generally he is soft spoken until he gets real wound up in some topic.

Austin: She is talkative unless she is scavving somewhere semi dangerous or something like that. Bright and a little raspy from too much dust and repairs over the years.

Roland: Talkative really only when drinking, a bit deeper than you would expect from his small frame and more rough from the drinking and radiation over the years in his travels.

Charlie: not very talkative, nice to listen to, clear deep voice, slightly Appalachian accent (best laugh of the ocs possibly)

Annamarie: Selectively chatty (good company or chems/alcohol will help that out, shes not actually adjusting to the wasteland well), easy to talk to once she does talk, less honeyed seeming than default nora when trying to get people to play nicely still nice to listen to.

Jereldo: The usual ghoul gravelyness. His speech patterns are fairly smooth and nearly melodic otherwise though.

Phil: Default Nate but pitch adjusted down a bit and a little bit untrustworthy, but that charisma makes you do the thing anyway. He is fine, and fun to talk to! Just, dont trust the raider boss head of the institute.

What does your OC’s bedroom look like? His/her living area?

Lucy: Comfy bed at Fizztop, too many blankets that are shoved off the bed most of the year, CoA bottles and candles over on a far side table and on the mannequins much to the disappointment of like, everyone. Bookshelves of random things and probably art supplies blocking the morning sun, different art and posters on the walls, the bar half remodeled for an outside kitchen. Cluttered everywhere.

Austin: She has a nice setup at the South End Red Rocket, her bedroom is an added on back room that has a comfy bed and a place for her cat (or mole rat depending on my playthrough), lots of shelves for things she has collected and nice lamps and rugs. The red rocket has a full setup of all that a tinkerer could ever dream of, and places for all of her favorite things to be displayed so her friends can see (and hopefully her pets will not steal)

Roland: He lives at the top of the lucky 38 with Niner and like 5 dogs that all have their favorite companion/s to be around the most, so really its fine and not so overkill. There are more games that the two of them have brought in and toys. The snow globes have been kept around, and the booze has been stocked a little more to their taste. Stash of chems left on tables because it is their space and who cares (in the commonwealth it isnt much different, pile of bears/moon monkies/buttercups as decorations, chems and booze decorate as clutter more than it should.)

Charlie: Codsworth has been instructed to leave the Stuff Chair alone (it is mostly just a spare change of clothes and another warmer jacket) comfortable bed, the dog shares the bed, fairly orderly. rest of the house has as much of the normal house things as he can find as soon as he can honestly. a bit sparse but he is still sorta getting the hang of this decorating thing.

Annamarie: She starts out with ‘whatever, good enough’ levels of bedroom and house and not much of a home base for quite a while. She will have a nicely made raider house once she gets her son and falls for Gage.

Jereldo: when hes not slumming it with raiders When he settles down for any amount of time, it tends to be in places similar to the house of tomorrow with the obnoxious teal kitchen and cute little 2 bedrooms at most. Bedroom tends to be kept with drapes and string lights. Potted plants and a music player are a must for the living room, some art area set up somewhere generally or on the porch area.

Phil: He prefers nice sheets and quilts and brings a lot of things to Fizztop and Sanctuary from the institute, fairly orderly overall and comfortable rugs in the bedroom. He clears out most things from his main living/working space, though things can get a bit cluttered/disheveled if hes working a lot. well lit.

What is your OC’s strongest childhood memory? Why and how as that impacted him/her?

(ohgods really im not getting into this one tonight lol but it is a question i need to delve into one day)

#oc ask meme #oc answers #lucy grandchester #jereldo doesnt follow rules #phil is the overboss #annamarie sneaks everywhere #charlie rebuilds the commonwealth #roland is probably hungover #austin picks up everything #longpost

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nanonaturalist · 6 years ago

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Using iNaturalist Tutorial 1: Making Observations (Mobile App)

Welcome to the first part in a series of tutorials on using the world-wide citizen science website/app/paradise that is iNaturalist [link]. They have their own tutorials on using the website [link], but *coughs* they haven’t been updated in a while and the interface changed a little.

I’m trying to encourage tumblr peeps to try out iNaturalist, so I created an “iNatters of tumblr” group [link] for us all to see what everybody else encounters, help each other ID things, and otherwise just have a fun time while contributing to science! Want to join us? Just create an account on iNaturalist, and either send me your username (on tumblr or on iNat!) and/or follow the group (click the button in the top right corner of the group page). I will add you to the list of identifiers, and all of your observations, past and present, will be added to the group! Check out my tagged posts about this project! [link]

Figuring out any new website or app can be confusing and frustrating, and I hope these tutorials will make it easier to start using iNaturalist. If anything I say is unclear, confusing, or doesn’t match what you see, just let me know and I will update this tutorial with a better explanation.

These tutorials are image-heavy and kinda long, so they will be under a cut. Note: I have the iPhone version of the app, so you may see a slightly different interface on another device.

Observation Tutorial Part 1: Making Observations with the Mobile App

First Thing’s First! Let’s check out your settings!

Most of these settings are self-explanatory. Automatic Upload The app defaults to automatic upload, which means it will start uploading your observations as soon as you save them. If you are doing a bioblitz, or are in an area with limited cell reception, this option can slow down the app and drain your battery. If you turn off this option, you will need to push the “upload” button to post your observations so others can see them.

Suggest Species This option is MAGICAL. It was first rolled out about a year ago, and HOLY CARP it’s pretty good! But, it does have limitations. First, it requires a good signal and can slow you down and eat up your battery. Also, it works based off a machine-learning system from observations previously uploaded and verified on iNaturalist. What this means: The identify tool can only successfully identify things that have been observed and identified by other real humans. Also, it only uses your main photo (the first one), and it can get thrown off if it was taken at a weird angle, or if there is lots of other stuff in the background (like plants, rocks, other bugs). And, very important to note: it does not take your location into consideration. There is a very heavy user-base in New Zealand, so it is fairly common for species that only occur in New Zealand to be suggested. So, use your best judgement. If you think something is a Booger Beetle, but the app suggests Snot Weevil, ignore the app. OR, you can stick to a higher classification (Beetles) and come back to it later. You can always change your mind!

iNaturalist Network You don’t really need to worry about this too much. There are a bunch of “flavors” of iNaturalist, and which network you select is the one your data will stick to in the event that the iNaturalist Network breaks up. They are more or less regional. More information about the networks here [link]

Okay, let’s take some photos!

Wow, nice! You have two options for making observations with the mobile app. Option 1: Take the photo now, worry about iNat later Option 2: Take the photo using the iNat app

I recommend choosing Option 1 if you are taking photos of things that may move, because the app has a bit of a delay, and the quality tends to not be as good. I use Option 1 almost exclusively, because it’s easier to take my photos and do bulk uploads when I’m inside and not being chased by mosquitos. Option 2 is better if your subject isn’t moving too fast, and if you are just observing a couple things (and also if you don’t want to build up a several-month-long backlog of photos on your phone...).

You can take and select multiple photos! Try to get different angles, and photograph different parts of your subject to help with IDs later.

Advanced iNatter Option If you take photos with your phone to upload later, you have the option of annotating your photos! This is helpful if you have more than one specimen in the photo, or if your specimen is well camouflaged. You can also point out important features, like I did below. Any edits you do to your photos before you upload them can really help out people who do IDs!

Regardless of which option you choose, you will end up at your observation page!

Adding identifications to your observations

From your observation page (on the left above), you can add more photos, add an ID, write notes, and edit time and location information. More on those options later! First, let’s click “What did you see?” to get to the ID page.

If you have “Suggest species” turned on, the app guesses what you saw. Clicking the information symbol to the right will show you more information on each species to help you decide if that ID is a good fit. Feel free to pick whatever you think is closest, and other people will agree with you OR suggest other identifications later.

If you know what you saw, or if you have a guess, go ahead and type it into the search bar. If you have autocomplete on, it will (guess what!) autocomplete what you are typing. If you have a slow connection, LOOK OUT because you might accidentally select the wrong ID due to lag.

Editing Location and Privacy

Depending on your phone’s privacy settings, your photos will automatically have a GPS stamp on them, so if you are adding photos to iNat later, you usually don’t need to worry about remembering where you took them. If you have this feature turned off for your phone, that’s fine! Or, if you have that option turned on, and your photos are GPS tagged, you can still protect your privacy while keeping the location data useful for scientists and researchers.

If you are wondering, “Why is location even important? Why should I bother?” There are a couple answers! First, there are very few species present worldwide. For the most part, in order to identify something, it is essentially to know where it was. Sometimes, you can be vague, and just stating the country is good enough detail to identify something (common for larger animals, like birds and mammals, and larger plants like trees). But other times, you need to be extremely specific. Some insects look nearly identical to each other, but there will be different species living on one side of a mountain range vs the other side, even if they are only 20 miles apart. And also, researchers who are tracking the movement of species in response to climate change can benefit from having access to accurate data--showing that a species of plant is appearing even several miles north each year is crucial to understanding how to manage environmental stewardship.

If you are out and about, and have GPS phototagging on, you don’t really need to edit your location (unless you want to!). If you have GPS tagging off, or the location data was a little off, OR you want to protect your privacy (observations at your house, for example), here’s what ya do:

Click the area on your observation page with location (I blanked those details out of my screencap). You will be taken to a map. Clicking the green arrow takes you to your current location. You can zoom in or out of the map (unfortunately, you can’t just type in an address on the mobile app, but you CAN on the website, and you CAN edit posts you made from the mobile app on the website later!). When the location you want is centered on the map, zoom in or out to set your accuracy (if you can’t remember where you were, but you KNOW you were somewhere in Austin, you would basically do what I have above in my map).

If you don’t want to edit the location, but you don’t want the entire world to know where your photos were taken, you can change the GeoPrivacy setting (kinda cut off in the screencap, but it’s directly underneath location). You can select three options: Open: Everybody can see where your observations were made Obscured: iNaturalist will create large square that contains your true location at some random point within the square. All observations with obscured coordinates will be randomly assigned to one point in that square. Only you can see those coordinates (one exception is if you join a very specific type of project, and you have opted-in to let project curators see obscured coordinates). Private: No location information is shared. You may select this option if you want, BUT keep in mind it will be very difficult for people to help identify your observations! For more information on GeoPrivacy, iNaturalist provides more information here [link]

Adding Observations to Projects

iNaturalist has many different kinds of projects [link]. The “iNatters of tumblr” project is a “collection” project type, which automatically adds observations meeting specific criteria (in our case, all observations made by users I have added to the project). Another type of of project, the “traditional” project type, was originally the only type of project available. It’s great for collecting some very specific observations that you can’t really search for. Two of my favorites are “Mating Behaviour” and “Animated Observations” [both are links]. The downside of these kinds of projects is somebody has to manually add each observation to the project. If you have joined one of these kinds of projects, you can link them to your observation before you save it. You can also add observations to projects any time later.

To link your observation with a project, you must have joined a project first. Afterwards, just click the button and you’re done!

Saving and Uploading

You’re almost done! Just ONE final step. Save!!! Click the big green SAVE button at the bottom, and you see your beautiful observation:

If you have Auto Uploads turned off, you need to click the upload button to start uploading. That’s it! Congratulations!

If you take your photos with a camera, or if you want to upload a BUNCH of observations at one time, you will want to make your observations on the website, rather than the mobile app. Making observations on the iNaturalist website will be the subject of Tutorial 2!

September 18, 2018

#this post took me three hours you're welcome #tumblr inat project #inaturalist #inat #citizen science #inat tutorial #how to #informational #time to go home #insects #beetles

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yunasightx · 6 years ago

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Names and Puzzle Pieces( aka , give me the Mcmercy fam fluff!))

(Behold this monster that has literally been sitting on my flash drive for a over a year and a half. I have no excuse for this fic besides the fact that I’m a sucker for wholesome expecting family fluff— and that goes double for this pair. Literally.)

Disclaimer:

As I stated before, this fic has been sitting around for a while .. so I really did not go through it with an ultra fine tooth comb (( and is also the reason why there are some characters, like Moria, who are not mentioned even though they have a strong relation to members of the original Overwatch--- especially in regards to Mercy and Mccree’s past. They simply were not around at the time when I wrote the bulk of this. I added Brigitte in last minute though , because it was a bit easier to mention her....and i may also ship her with a certain rocket-jump gal ))I did try my best, but I really just wanted to get it over with. So, apologies for Iand grammar issues. I may go back to edit later if I see anything insanely obvious.

In the meantime, happy reading and enjoy! ))

Tornborjn,

I just looked over the schematics you sent me. So far, the upgrade looks promising – but I’m a little concerned about stress the additional weight and momentum might put on the joints in Fig 4. Reinhart is not as young as he use to be ( despite what he might boast about) , and while an extra booster might help the Crusader Suit have a little bit more of the “OOMPH” the two of you are looking for …. Osteoporosis is not just something that is exclusive to women. Which reminds me…. I believe you are overdue for your yearly physical as well, Bärchen <3.

Angela

Ps. I highlighted the issues I think need a second glance. Maybe we can get lunch next Tuesday to look them over? I have been craving grilled fish and sriracha something terrible lately.

Angela read over the email one last time, checking for the usual typos and general grammatical errors, before hitting the send button. The email blipped out of existence from her computer screen leaving only the default Overwatch logo quietly staring back at her.

The doctor leaned back in her chair with a content sigh, “Well, one thing down…. Several more to go.” She had spent the whole morning cleaning out her (what always appeared to be) constantly full inbox; replying to and sending out correspondences to anyone and everyone who had questions and concerns for the Head Doctor of the reinstated global peacekeeping organization. Angela supposed she could have been fielding most of them off to an intern, or even asked Athena for assistance, but she liked being proactive in things ---- and truth was… she needed SOMETHING to do for the next couple of months.

Angela glanced over to her Valkyrie Suit which stood like marble statue between the two pristine white and glass shelves behind her desk while her hand came up to rest on her still- rounding ��stomach. The lighting of the room gave the enameled white coating a soft iridescent glow and illuminated rest of the black, orange and gold details. The sight of it rising over the back of her chair, even with the wings powered off, as someone walked into her pristine office was something that she knew bordered on spiritual

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss the adrenaline, the rush, and energy of being on the field ,or being actively involved in something ; but while the she would always be incredibly proud of her first child ---- at the moment she now had other lives she had to care for first.

And she knew the others were in good hands; Lucio and Zenyatta were newer to the life style of being a Overwatch Field medic , but so far they had shown enough promise that most of Mercy’s fears had been eased. And dear darling Brigitte had taken the helm of that group in stride after dealing with patching up Reinhardt for years. They often came to her for advice, and she was very happy with how far all of them had come since joining Overwatch.

Angela actually had the sneaking suppression that donning the Valkyrie suit for so long was the reason why her pregnancy had been going so smoothly —for the most part— in the first place . The results weren’t completely definitive, but it seems wearing and handling experimental bio- nanotechnology over a long period of time had had some unforeseen side effects. One of which being what basically boiled down to slowing down the aging of Angela’s cells. It wasn’t much, just a under a decade in difference to her chronological age—-she would still age, she just wouldn’t have to worry about things like grey hair , wrinkles , mammograms, and arthritis as soon as everyone else.

Ana had joked the she should retire and just sell her product to a home-shopping network as the newest “anti-aging skin care line” --- then buy a nice little vacation home in Hawaii for her , McCree and the little ones ( with an extra guest house for their favorite “Nana”, of course).

But, Mercy knew that at nearly Thirty-Nine years of age she should have expected a myriad of complications with getting pregnant, at least naturally ---- especially with both her and McCree starting to push forty. So, when it had happened after their first try… it had come as a bit of shock. She and Jesse had talked about the possibility of children, the idea of growing their family just a little, but they had still had gone into the whole thing with a mindset of “if it happens, it happens”.

And when they discovered it they would be having twins….

Well, Mercy made a note to add gynecology and fertility research to her ever growing list. After she had to pick McCree off the floor that is.

But, aside from three and a half months of nightmarish morning sickness and the never ending whiplash of weird cravings, everything had been progressing surprisingly well.

Well… almost everything.

Angela’s thoughts broke off when she felt what was quickly becoming familiar fluttering of movement pushing against the palm of her hand. She laughed and lightly rubbed her fingers over the spot, “I guess nap time is over , hmm?” She hummed. She felt another little persistent nudge and sighed, “Right..... back to work!”

Angela braced her hands against the armrests and pushed away from her desk, before awkwardly hauling herself back to her feet; grunting as her center of gravity and new constantly-changing weight shifted back to her pelvis as her very round stomach curved out in front of her and her lower back arched in.

Angela knew she was surprising large, even with twins. She looked more like she was nearing the tail end of her third trimester with one child, rather than twenty weeks with two.

She had given up trying to button her lab coat and pants weeks ago, and forgot the last time she had been actually able to see her feet (were her toes still painted sky blue? Or was it lilac? Rustic orange ? The world will never know. ) Now, she just opted for breathable tunic dresses and a nice pair of stretchy leggings with her favorite pair of flats ——and when she was home, she all put lived in Jesse’s flannel shirts ( but, she had the feeling even they wouldn’t fit for much longer either at this rate..)

She thought about the closet of cute, but sensible new maternity wear Ana , Lena, Brigitte and Pharah had eagerly helped her shop for just a few weeks ago (with the former captain letting Mercy know she should be very thankful she didn’t have to be stuck with horrible fashion styles that were around when she was having Pharah… or the lack there of). She felt a bit guilty that she was growing out of them so quickly.

Then again….. technically the twins were farther along than twenty weeks. At least, from a gestational stand point.

That was other thing . The other unforeseen side effect of donning her Valkyrie suite for so long and so often. Besides slowing down her ownaging, somehow the twins were growing at a slightly accelerated rate. Not insanely or supernaturally fast, but every test her and Winston had run had proven they were consistently three weeks ahead of any normal development.

Mercy had gone back and doubled, even tripled checked her math, but it was hard to mistake the night that led to all of this. It was enough of an oddity that even though there had been no other complications, both of them agreed to err on the side of caution and treat her as a usual High-risk case and closely monitor her and the babies’ progress.

Angela huffed and braced one hand against her lower back as the other started rubbing circles along her upper right side, hoping to dislodge whoever decided to jam themselves between her spleen and ribcage. She waddled over to her stainless steel work station by the large glass wall that ran the length of the room and looked out into the hallway between her and the panoramic windows that viewed the deep shimmering blue waters of the Alboran Sea. She picked up the tablet she had left there and pulled up her own medical file, along with half- a- screen’s worth of notifications of upcoming appointments and tests. The lab results from her latest round of blood tests had just come in; most of her levels were fine, except her iron levels which were a tad little low (Angela rolled her eyes at that. Of course, Jesse’s spawn would be as obsessed with red meat as their father.)

She quickly scrolled through the rest of the results, then sent them and the reminded of her next ultrasound away with a flick of her fingers before pulling up several medical files and the list of Overwatch agents who she still had to hound down for the yearly physical. Thankfully, a majority of the list was already highlighted in bright blue, but there were still a handful of names in red ---and most of those she didn’t even need to look at to know who was dragging their feet to the medical wing.

Let’s see…..Genji came in for his exam Monday, so he’s done. Hanzo was on time, as always. Lena is tomorrow—I’ll need to remind Winston about that. Mercy tapped Tracer’s name and informed Athena to let her fellow scientist know about his needed assistance.

“Shall I also remind Winston that it is time for his exam as well, Dr. Ziegler?” The AI suggested helpfully.

Mercy laughed, “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll just recruit Lena to help me hold him down, you know how he can be.”

The AI let out a slightly computerized sigh, “Unfortunately, all too well I’m afraid.”

I will probably have to drag Torbjorn here myself after lunch next week …And I will probably have to ask Ana , Pharah, and Brigette to help with Reinhart, The doctor sighed as she turned back to her list, her fingers briefly hovering over the names that were blocked out in black---- the white lettering spelling out the identities as sharp and finite as a row of marble headstones on a dark lawn. The files had been pulled over with the rest when Athena had backed up the old medical records from the original Overwatch.

Gerard Lacroix --- Deceased

Jack Morrison --- Deceased

Gabriel Reyes --- Deceased

Ana’s name had also recently been shrouded in the mournful color, but she had given her blessing to correct the outdated file. Her active status was now in the same bright cobalt blue as her daughter’s name near the top --- although, she had objected to also having her “Captain” title receiving the same treatment.

“I’m retired now, malak. These old bones aren’t fit to keep babysitting you brats all the time. Just leave me in the back with the rest of the old timers, and we’ll bail you kids out when you’ve finished having your fun.”

“76” on the other hand refused to go by any other name---- no matter how hard Angela or the others tried to convince him to reconsider, the old solider stubbornly refused to budge.

“The commander of Overwatch died at the Swiss base. If you want him, you can find him six feet under his tombstone in Arlington.”

As for the last two names….. well… despite their best advancements and research even science couldn’t truly bring back the dead.

And even then……….. Angela was not sure she would ever cross that line. She had toed it with Genji, even the very reasoning behind her own nanotechnology research flirted with that perilous edge …

But sometimes, the line between Man and God was drawn for a reason, and the price that asked was just too much to handle. You could make life, mend it, repair it if need be ----but you could not return light to a candle that no longer had a wick to burn.

Enough of that, Ziegler. Angela shook her head to clear her thoughts, and leave the past where it was supposed to be. She scrolled through the rest of the names until she came to one very familiar name that she wasn’t surprised was still in red.

“What am I going to do with him?” Angela sighed and tapped opened the file, so focused that she missed the metallic jingle of spurs and confident clomp cowboy boots sneaking up behind her.

“Boo.”

Angela jumped in surprise when two arms grabbed her from behind and that mischievous, honey-whiskey -warm voice smirked against the back of her ear. She shot a pointed look over her shoulder ( which lacked any real bite), but Jesse just greeted her with one of his charming smiles---- completely unapologetic as he leaned down and placed a kiss on the back of her shoulder as both of his hands drifted down to the sides of her stomach.

“How’re y’all doin’?”

Angela could feel his warm chuckle and smile against her skin when he felt one of the twins jab at the underside of his human palm, “Well, that one definitely takes after me. Not even out yet, and already tryin’ to start a fight.”

Angela rolled her eyes, but there was smile on her face as she turned her head and kissed his cheek. He had trimmed his beard a little bit from the wild bush he had during his vigilante days, and his hair was back to the style he had it during the prime of his days in Blackwatch . It was still unkempt and disheveled as ever, but Angela has always liked that length on him. And Jesse said he finally got sick having it stick to the back of his neck in the blistering heat and finding beard hairs in his whiskey.

“Did you just get back?” She could still smell the salt, sea spray, and limestone of Ilios on him, along with a bit of gunpowder and a little bit of nicotine. Jesse had reluctantly agreed to cut back on the smoking when they decided to try to start a family (only because she had threatened that he would have to bunk with Genji , Hanzo and Zenyatta for the next eighteen years if he so much as thought about lighting up around her or the children) , but when he was out on assignment he still smoked at a cigar or two. Mercy was at least grateful he wasn’t smoking a pack a day anymore.

He had cut back on drinking too. Genji had mostly been the one to thank for that----he and Zenyatta had been helping Jesse slowly deal with his demons over the last year and a half. For the youngest Shamada, it was the least he could do for his former Blackwatch brother and very dear friend, and the two now had a bond that went deeper than just former coworkers.

It was nice to see both of them smile so easily again.

Eventually, the two of them ganged up on her; and while she originally dug in her heels and refused to acknowledge the parts of her that she shoved and locked away in deep into the shadows, far away from anyone else (her failures, her regrets , guilt and blame and what ifs) ……it didn’t take a neuro scientist to know that something besides her work or adjustments to her suit was keeping her awake all night. And her heart was so much lighter for it.

“Just docked”,Jesse pressed another kiss against her shoulder before lifting his head a bit and resting his chin there with a deep content hum, “Figured I’d hide out here for a bit before having to face the paperwork.” He wrapped his arms under her stomach to pull her into his warmth, “Don’t think I’ll be able to keep doing this for much longer. What are ya feedin’ these kids ,Angie?”

Angela smacked his arm ,”Burgers and sriracha. And I wonder who I can thank for that.”

“Hey, don’t pick on me. I remember those paper bags you tried hiding under your desk,’ Miss McDonalds’.”

“It was Wendy’s.” Angela said automatically, not even phased about Jesse calling her out on her old guilty pleasure.

“Yeaaaaaaaahh,” Jesse drawled out with a lazy smirk that she could feel curl against her neck , “ but you’re gonna be stuck with a bunch ol McCrees so I figured it was more fitting.”

“Who said they were going to be “McCrees”?”

Angela had to bite down on her tongue from laughing as the charming “I’m winning this round” smirk slipped right off the gunslinger’s face.

“That ain’t very nice, Angel. Don’t be mean.”

“I am not being mean,” Angela had to try very to keep her voice clinical and matter-of-fact , instead of breaking out into the giggles that tickled in her throat. She knew it wasn’t nice to tease him like this, but it was cute when he pouted. “Technically, we are not married so—“

“And you told me you didn’t want that right now,” Jesse pulled away, and Angela knew instantly that she went too far. Frustration mixed with the jet lag and three sleepless nights of clearing out stubborn Talon agents from Greek ruins that lined the cowboy’s shoulders, giving him a wounded look that was worse than any bullet to her heart.

She knew without asking what his plan had been the moment he stepped on to the helipad---- a nice cold drink, kick off those dumb boots, and to spend the rest of a quite afternoon with the woman and mother of his children who had basically stolen his heart almost twenty-two years ago.

“ I offered it to you, but you said it wasn’t necessary. That is just a dumb piece of pa----“

Angela swallowed the rest of his argument by reaching out and pulling his head down to kiss him sweetly, putting a cooling balm on his temper. He seemed to have gotten the message because his shoulders instantly relaxed under her hands as his went to her widened hips and he shook his head with a gravely sigh, “I really don’t like how easily you can get under my skin like that sometimes, woman.”

She shook her head and gave him another kiss before pulling back and reaching up to apologetically smooth back his hair, pushing back a laugh when he tried to puller closer but her stomach got in the way, “ No, that was a terrible attempt of a joke. I shouldn’t have said it.”

Jesse had always been the more emotional one between them; the sentimental, passionate, and sweet parts of their relationship --- a simmering slow southern day outside of Sante Fe. Even after all these years, she still had trouble accepting that when Jesse McCree loved you he did it absolutely, openly, and without holding anything back----it was all or nothing for him.

When she thought back on it, Angela realized she never stood a chance.

For Jesse, a ring and wedding was more than just a tradition. It wasn’t a claim on her, or a way “to keep her an honorable woman” and their children from being born under questionable circumstances or the hundreds of other reasons people have married for over the thousands and thousands of years of human history.

It was a promise. One of the most important ones he could ever give, besides his oath to Reyes and Amari when they offered him a rank in Overwatch ----a chance to do something worthwhile and good.

Angela just didn’t know if she was worthy of that promise just yet.

She still had moments where she worried if she could do this. If they could really could do this. That whisp of doubt that had spread and thrived in the shadow of the ruins and rubble of the old Overwatch. In the shadow of her every regret and helplessness and weakness when everything she held dear crumbled right through her fingers. The one thing she could never heal and fix.

Those names flickered in her mind again.

....The names of those she failed to support.

But, she was more than willing to try.

As silly, confounding, confusing, reckless, and dramatic as her cowboy was ----she never really thought the idea of spending the rest of her life question her sanity around him sounded bad. Even back before the old Swiss base had been nothing but a pile of bitter-sweet memories, secrets, and rubble. Before they had answered Winston’s recall……and then decided to try to pick up the pieces each of them had been carefully tucking away during the years in between.

They weren’t puzzle pieces that fit together, but------

“ I think McCree is a lovely name,” Angela hummed as she pressed her lips to his cheek, just along the curve of the dark circles under his right eye, “ I also think you should have gotten more sleep. No offense, Jesse, but you look dead on your feet. And I am the doctor who is pregnant with twins.”

The cowboy gave a resigned sigh and sank down into a nearby chair, pulling her with him and across his lap since his arms had tried to find their way around her waist again. She placed her tablet down on the counter and shifted to make herself more comfortable, placing her hands over his as they followed the faint movements of the twins hands, knees, elbows, and etc pressing against her sides. “Just give this old cowboy a few minutes, Ange. I missed you somethin’ fierce out there,” He muttered against her skin as he rested his forehead against her shoulder again.

“You really should be taking better care of yourself.”

The gunslinger gave a soft chuckle at the old scolding that had lost its intentional bite years ago, “Acknowledged”.

Angela knew Jesse had a terrible time sleeping when he was away on assignment these days; which was more than unusual because she couldn’t think of a place at the Swiss base where someone had not seen him napping with his hat over his face and his boots probed up on a random surface. It would not have be long before said hat was slapped off, and he was dragged off by his ear for laps by a very grumbly Gabriel Reyes to burn off all that extra energy he had obviously been storing up.

“And just what are you smiling about?”

Mercy came out of the past, and shook her head at Jesse who was watching her with an amused smile before she settled against his him with her head on his shoulder, “ Nothing, just some silly memories. I can prescribe you some minor sleep aids if you think that would help.”

The main reason for Jesse restlessness out on the field was because when his mind didn’t have to be focused on a gunfight, it was right back here with her and the twins. It wasn’t so bad in the beginning, but as her pregnancy progressed the little fear of something happening when he might be several time zones away kept knawing itself a nice little home at the back of his mind---- like a mouse chewing its way through a baseboard.

Nightly phone calls and face -time sessions helped reassure him that Talon had not attacked the base, Hana had not accidentally shut down the entire power grid by rigging up a super computer for gaming, and Winston did not turn her or the children into a tubs of peanut butter ( “………have you been drinking with Winhelm and Torbjorn again?” “……No, but I did have some kind of weird Japanese fish dish Genji made.” )

Even then ,Hanzo had taken up Mercy’s position of McCree’s common sense out on the field --- taking away the gunslinger’s phone so the bright LED screen didn’t give away their position when he kept checking in every five minutes as bullets whizzed by their heads.

Jesse gave a tired sigh as he raised his head and rest his chin on the crown of her head as he drew in closer, “I’ll be fine. I just need you and our bed , and maybe a hot toddy to dull the edge. I’m home now, that’s all that matters.”

Home. After how many years that word did hurt to think about anymore.

The two of them stayed like that for a while. Forgetting about emails and exams and desks full of paperwork, and just trying to enjoy this moment of absolute suspended moment of peace like a sip of Angela’s homemade hot chocolate or Jesses favorite aged whiskey.

If she closed her eyes she could almost smell the air of the Swiss alpines again, feel concrete lightly bite the backs of her thighs and the warm weight of a young gunslinger’s arm and serape around her shoulders as her knees dangled over the side of roof while she and Jesse watched the sun rise over the base. Watching as the light and sky started out deep and rich and slowly turned golden, blinding and bright.

Almost….. if it weren’t the constant movement jostling her insides.

“They don’t like keeping still, do they?”, Jesse grinned, his hands were tracking them across her stomach again, eagerly moving from her sides and resting just below her navel now. He looked down at her, eyes lined with jet lagged and some residual signs of his drinking and smoking lifestyle--- but still the same soft and lively molten brown she first seen at seventeen.

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Angela tilted her head up and teasingly nipped the tip of his nose.

“ Hmmm….. How long are you goin’ to be cooped up in here? I was thinking you, me, some nice seared steak and pasta, and ---“

“If you even think about mentioning another one of your western movies again, Jesse, I am just going stay here and sleep in one of the med bay beds tonight.”

“…….Well, now who’s jumping the gun? I was goin’ to suggest that one old timey pirate movie Ana use to play all the time during break nights.”

“…….I’m sure you were, cowboy.”

Jesse held his hands up in surrender, “Alright, alright. You get to pick the movie tonight. Just don’t make it one of those boring educational flicks again. I’d like to be able stay awake with you tonight.”

“You liked the last few I’ve selected,” Angela pointed out, rubbing at her side to calm down whichever twin was unhappy bout suddenly being ignored.

“Yeah, well one of those was about those murders in Victorian London. Of course that’s going to keep my interest. But seriously Angie, as much as I want to know about what’s going on with you and the kids, “ The Gestational Process and Bonding of the Human Species ; From Conception to Birth And Beyond” isn’t exactly what I would call a “date night movie”.”

“……That is a fair point,” Angela relented, “ I just thought you would like it since you have pretty much checked out every single book we have about pregnancy in the library, and have hounded Ana,Torbjorn, Winston and I with questions. You even had Hanzo buy them for you in town.”

She watched as her cowboy turned a nice shade of pink under his beard, “ ….You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

“Jesse….” Angela chucked endearingly as she brushed his hair out of his eyes, “ Libeling, it’s been kind of hard not to. But, it is sweet ----- a bit annoying sometimes, but it’s been a pleasant surprise.”

Jesse looked down at his hands, which had gone back to her middle, gently circling his thumb over the back of her hands. His voice was soft, almost unsure, like he was slowly trying to figure out an new language and did not want to mince up the words “ …..I’m just a fish out of water with all of this. I never thought I would ever have a shot at something like this. That it wasn’t in the cards for me with the shit show our lives became after everything. But, God, did I want …… I don’t deserve an inch of you ,Ange. I sure didn’t back then and I’m not sure I do----“

Angela kissed him before the raw emotion leaking into his voice broke both of them in two. It was safe to say this was uncharted territory for both of them; two orphans who only had faded fragments of their own parents and a mismatch patchwork quilt they called family that had been made, ripped and repaired over the years as a reference.

There were a thousand things she wanted to tell him right then, but she would save that for when they were not surrounded by the cold, sterile, and professional environment of the med bay and her office. She wanted to be wrapped up in one of his flannel shirts and his arms first.

“I do have something for you,” She reached for her tablet and pulled up the file she had been saving for when he got back.

Jesse groaned the second end moved her arm, “ Angel…look, I know I’m due for that blasted checkup, but do you really—“

“You can relax, it’s not your physical. ..Yet. I will be getting you for that later,” Angela handed him the tablet and watched as one of his eye brows raised at the sight of her name and date of birth at the top of the page. She offered him a sheepish smile, “ I know you wanted to be there, but I’m afraid Winston got the dates mixed up. No one else knows about it yet…..but I thought it would be a nice surprise for you when you got back.”

She could barely hide her excitement as his eyes flitted down past all the medical information and jargon the he did not understand, and landed on the one part of the report that was impossible to mistake. She had to bite down on the corner of her lip to keep from beaming at him when his brown eyes went wide and looked between her, the tablet and back again. It was one of the few time she had seen the bombastic cowboy struck speechless, “ …Both?”

Angela nodded, finally letting herself smile,“ Both. One of each. I guess that means we’re done after this.”

But,Jesse seemed to have missed her joke as he quickly set the tablet back down and demanded to know which twin was where. Angela laughed as she guided the one hand to where their son was trying to cozy up to her ribs again, and the other to where their daughter has kicked his hand earlier. “ They do move , but I think that’s where they are for the most part, “ Angela titled her head as she took in the suddenly serious look crossing on Jesse’s face that he only got when he was trying to whip a strategy during a mission , “Is something the matter, Libeling?”

“….. Figuring out how much I’m gonna have to stock up on ammo for when they get older. Maybe finally talk Torb into installing that finger gu-”

“Jesse Leon McCree!” Angela’s glare cut through his thought faster than one of her laser- guided scalpels, “For the last time, I am not installing finger guns into your prosthetic!”

“I didn’t say you, now did I?”

“ Torbjorn won’t do it either. I already warned him I would revoke his honorary grandfather card if I ever caught him with schematics.”

“ Awwwww, come on! That ain’t fair, Angel!” Jesse whined. “ How else am I supposed to scare idots away from little Annie when she gets older?”

“Are you thrity-nine or nine…? And I am sure you will come up with something. Also, we are not naming out children after wild- west outlaws.”

“…Dam.. I was sittin’ on that one for a while,” Jesse looked at her again, “ What about-“

“No.”

Jesse jutted out his lower lip and looked at her with those big puppy gold-brown eyes that had been bane of her existence for the last twenty- something years. ….But, she would be lying to herself if said she wasn’t at least a little bit happy that genetics promised that there was a very good chance at their children would have his eyes as well.

“Fineeeeeeeee,” Jesse sighed when he realized he wasn’t going to win their little stalemate, although there is more than a hint of a whine to it, “What about “Fenrir” for the boy then? That’s something you’ve always liked.”

“Oh mein got!” Angela rolled her eyes, “Out of all the Norse myths I have told you, of course that’s the one you remember.”

“What? We could call him “Fen”,” Jesse pointed out innocently.

“You do remember that Loki is the one who gave birth to him, don’t you?”, Angela pointed out with a sigh, “ Only you would want to name your son after the eater of the world and killer of Odin? How about “Tyr”?” She tapped her finger nail against the scared- up skull engraved into the metal plating of his bionic arm. “The god of Justice. That seems a bit more fitting. “

Jesse watched her hand with a little smirk as he leaned his head against her shoulder again. They might have been playfully arguing about names, but she had never seen him look so content. The look in his expression said it all… ….he held his entire world in his arms. “Eh, it’s not as cool. Any kid of ours is going to be hell –in- a- hand basket and an angel all-in-one, they need a name goes with it.”

“I think it’s just in your nature to -- how do you Americans say it----“ Go Big or Go Home”?” Angela laughed as Jesse gently, but playfully pulled her closer against his chest, his hands resting on her hip as his lips grinned against her forehead and his beard tickling between her eyes

“Yep ,sounds like me. I’ve always dreamed big---- how else could I have gotten as lucky to end up with someone like you? You don’t get chosen by an angel just by waiting around and twiddling your thumbs.”

Angela rolled her eyes as she shifted in the cowboy’s lap as their daughter let her know she didn’t like being squished between them by trying to kick elbow her pancreas. Jesse’s hands instantly went to the spot and circled his fingers to apologize.

They were going to be fine.

“Well…..I do have one name in mind… ,”Angela hesitated. She wasn’t quite sure how Jesse would react to her suggestion. She still didn’t know how she completely felt about it.

It had started as a little idea that had just popped up in the back of her mind the moment the blood tests had confirmed everything, like one of the single little cells their children had started out as. At first, she just shook it off as an impossible notion, just the increasing hormones her body being annoying ; but like Jesse, it just hunkered down and refused to budged until she begrudgingly paid attention to it.

It was name that had weight to it, memories and heartbreak. But, she knew it was a name that meant a lot to Jesse… and even herself and many others in their little rag tag family. And the more she had thought about it, each week the name just sounded a little more right. Her mind went back to the list of names of those she had failed to save.

You could not return life to can candle that no longer had a wick , but the scent of the wax would always linger.

“Gabriel.”

She carefully watched his face as her stomach squirmed in a way that had nothing to do with her tumbling twins or morning sickness. It only took a few moments, but it felt life time as she watched the confusion on his face melt into surprise then something so soft and speechless that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to smile or cry herself.

For now she would blame it on the hormones.

“I like it, Darlin’,” His voice was soft, like a warm camp-fire on a cool night as he reached up and tucked her side swept bang behind her ear. “ … Thank you.”

She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand as his callused and tanned finger s trailed over her cheek, still the same as they had always been despite all the years. They still felt like home.

“There is nothing to thank me for, Liebling. “

“…. I still want Fen as a first name though.”

Angela gave a heavy sigh, Andddddddd there went the moment,“ Do not make me kick you out of my office .“

Jesse just gave her another smug and charming smirk that made his right eye twinkle, “Gotta come up with a better bluff than that, Sugarbee. I’m your favorite pillow.”

“Well, since you are here ,Darlin..” She drawled a little too innocently , “ I do have a long list of overdue shots with your name on it.”

The cowboy blanched and Angela just gave him his smirk right back before breaking down into a smile and leaning forward to kiss him as he huffed against her mouth and pulled her as close as her stomach would allow. “ Woman, I swear there is devil in those angel eyes sometimes.”

No, they were not puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together --- there were too many broken edges that had been worn and dented over the years. They were more like pieces of a shattered glass that had been put together into a mosaic. Something that was a little old and new at the same time , fractured and whole… and made something wonderful and beautiful when the light shone through.

#mcmercy #fanfiction #Overwatch #look mah i write too!#jesse mccree #overwatch mercy #mccree #angela ziegler #family fluff #oc kids

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mikegranich87 · 3 years ago

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Windows 11 review: Microsoft’s most pleasant OS—until it isn't

What's the point of Windows 11? With Windows 10, Microsoft had to make a big course correction from Windows 8, an ambitious yet flawed attempt at bringing PCs into the touchscreen era. Before that, Windows 7 was meant as a palate cleanser to help us forget about the bloated mess that was Vista. Given that Windows 10 was already pretty polished when it launched, and only got better over time, why the need for a whole new version?

After testing early builds for months, as well as the shipping release this past week (here's how to nab it yourself), it's clear that Microsoft isn't actually trying to fix much with Windows 11. It's basically a fresh coat of paint on top of Windows 10 (and likely a last-ditch attempt at rebranding the defunct Windows 10X.) But the more I use it, the easier it is to see that small design tweaks can go a long way. Windows 10 was laser-focused on productivity; it aimed to make you as efficient as possible. Windows 11 goes a step further: What if being productive was also pleasant and oddly relaxing? Windows, meet mindfulness.

What's new

At first glance, Windows 11 may seem like a radical departure from Microsoft's typical desktop template — an aesthetic that hearkens all the way back to Windows 95. The taskbar is still around, but now all of your icons are centered by default. The Start menu is back with a redesigned look featuring pinned and recommended apps (you can also hit All Apps to see everything you've got installed). RIP, Live Tiles — nobody ever used you.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

This refreshed look extends throughout Windows 11: App windows now have rounded corners; icons, Windows Explorer and the Settings app look sharper than ever; and even the sound effects have been cleaned up. This is Windows at its most refined. To put it uncharitably, though, it also seems a lot like macOS. But fret not, Windows diehards: You can still shove the entire taskbar back to the left side of the screen. (Editor’s note: Where it belongs.)

Microsoft has also reworked system tray, for better and worse. Hitting the date and time brings up your notifications and calendar, while clicking on the volume or networking icons makes the new action center pop out. It’s similar to the system shortcuts in Windows 10, allowing you to change Wi-Fi networks, enable airplane mode and quickly change your brightness and volume. You can also easily reach some accessibility tweaks, like enabling the magnifier or color filters. Everything looks sleeker than Windows 10, though some options are gone entirely, like the ability to turn Night Lite settings on and off.

Windows 11 also marks a major return for widgets: bite-sized apps that also appeared in Windows 7. You can reach them by hitting the widget button in the taskbar, but frankly, I found them useless. These days, I don’t need a glanceable screen for my calendar, news and mail, not when my smartphone is always within reach.

Microsoft

Less noticeable than the taskbar changes, but still important, is the new Windows Store. It looks cleaner, with a left-hand navigation bar and multiple panes for individual app entries. I'd wager Microsoft just wanted to keep those install and purchase buttons in clear view at all times. Windows 10 is also getting the same Store app eventually, so it's not really an exclusive for the new OS. Eventually, we'll also see Android apps in the Microsoft Store, but it's unclear when that's happening.

Similarly, Windows 11 ships with the latest Xbox app, but that's also available on Windows 10. You'll still want to upgrade for the best overall gaming performance, though, as Windows 11 will be the only way to use Microsoft's DirectStorage technology on PCs. Whenever that does land it should dramatically speed up load times (assuming you have a compatible GPU and SSD) just like the Xbox Series S and X.

Microsoft

Calm from the start... mostly

On a new PC, Windows 11 welcomes you with a series of setup screens that feel like you're flipping through a spa brochure. Log into your Wi-Fi (or plug into Ethernet), enter your Microsoft credentials, and maybe grab a cucumber water while you wait.

As with Windows 10, you can choose to disable advertising IDs, which prevents ad tracking, and opt out of sending diagnostic information to Microsoft. But there aren't many other choices you'll have to make; the setup process basically runs on autopilot until you see the new desktop.

It's worth noting that Microsoft has made setup more restrictive for Windows 11 Home users: Both an internet connection and Microsoft account are required. You won't be able to set up a local user account, or use your computer at all, until you meet those requirements. Windows 11 Pro users won't have that limitation, which is good news for IT professionals and power users. But it could be frustrating for people without reliable internet access of their own.

(As of last year, the FCC said around 14.5 million Americans don't have steady broadband, defined as at least 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps uploads. Recent figures from Data Reportal say around 40 percent of the world's population are offline. Microsoft is probably assuming that the majority of its potential customers won't have an issue finding internet, but that goes directly against the company's moves towards increased accessibility.)

I'd expect many consumers will be upgrading their existing Windows 10 systems, rather than setting up a new computer. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't have a way for me to upgrade my PC with a final Windows 11 release. Based on what I've seen with the latest Windows 11 Insider previews, though, moving to the new OS appears to be very similar to installing a major Windows 10 update. On a Surface Laptop 4 I had lying around, the upgrade process took around 15 minutes after downloading the new OS via Windows update.

You're going to have a tougher time if you own an older PC that doesn't meet Microsoft's hardware requirements. You'll need a compatible Intel, AMD or Qualcomm processor; 4GB of RAM; and at least 64GB of storage. Also, you'll have to enable Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module), features that should make it harder for spyware and malware to attack your OS. Microsoft's PC Health Check app can help you see if your system is ready for Windows 11.

If you don't meet the upgrade requirements, you can download a Windows 11 ISO and install it manually, a method that bypasses Microsoft's CPU restrictions. Still, you'll need to be savvy enough to create a boot disk and deal with a more complex installation. Another caveat: manual installations may not receive some future Windows Updates, according to The Verge. (It sounds like Microsoft hasn't decided how restrictive it wants to be just yet.)

If you've built your own desktop PC, I'd suggest bracing yourself for additional upgrade complications. Microsoft's Health Check app initially said that my system — powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor, an ASROCK motherboard and 32GB of RAM — wasn't compatible with Windows 11. It turned out I needed to enable the AMD TPM 2.0 module and Secure Boot in my BIOS. But once I did all that, my system couldn't boot into my Windows 10 installation.

After a bit of sleuthing, I learned that I needed to convert my Windows 10 installation disk from MBR (Master Boot Record) to GPT (GUID Partition Table). So off I went into the command line to run some strings and pray for my Windows installation's safety. Five sweat-soaked minutes later, I rebooted and saw my trusty Windows login screen. Whew. From there, I was able to proceed with the Windows 11 Update as normal.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a Windows 10 installation on an MBR disk — that was the standard on older computers — so I'm hoping Microsoft eventually bakes that conversion into the entire Windows 11 setup process. I can't imagine average consumers trying to figure out command line prompts without wanting to throw their PCs out the window.

Microsoft

In use: A new look, new frustrations

Windows 11 is nice to use. Pleasant, even. Windows 10 wasn't ugly, but Windows 11's focus on design leads to a more refined experience at first. I enjoyed having color-matched themes. The new Settings app is a dream; it's actually easy to find things for once! I genuinely love the new automatic window snapping, which lets you shove an app to a particular area of your screen by hovering above the maximize icon. Even better, snapping a few apps together creates a group that you can easily revisit in the taskbar.

That facelift doesn't come at the expense of performance, either. Windows 11 feels just as fast as Windows 10 on all of my test systems. But I'll be more interested to see how it performs on PCs older than five years, which is about the cut-off for Microsoft's upgrade requirements.

As impressed as I am by the design changes, a part of me feels constrained by the new OS. No matter where you place your taskbar icons, for example, you won't be able to see app labels anymore. Microsoft has been pushing an icon-focused taskbar since Windows 7, but you always had the option to turn on labels, so you could see what was in an app window before you clicked on it. Dealing with that loss is the single biggest hurdle I had with Windows 11.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Now it takes me multiple clicks to find a specific Chrome window, or to locate an email I popped out of Gmail. Icons just aren't enough. I can understand why Microsoft took away labels: They make your desktop look chaotic. It's not nearly as zen as a simple line of high-resolution pictures.

But as a Windows user, I'm used to chaos. I was shaped by the instability of Windows 3.11; I learned to tame Windows XP as an IT admin; and I was there at the Windows 8 launch in Spain (an event that seems cursed in retrospect). Even after all of that, I'm still primarily a Windows user. If chaos can make me more productive, I embrace the madness. Sadly, Windows 11 doesn't give me that option. It just wants me to relax, damnit.

To be fair, I have similar issues with macOS. As pretty as it is, finding a specific app window can be frustrating. To mitigate that, I typically rely on Mission Control to establish hot corners that can either show me every open app, windows within a specific program, or the desktop. Windows 11 lets you set up a hot corner in the bottom right of your screen to show the desktop, but you'll have to rely on keyboard shortcuts to see open apps. (I'm still debating whether Alt + Tab or Win + Tab is better.)

After spending so much time with Windows 11, I'm begrudgingly getting the hang of the new taskbar, at least. I'd bet some Windows diehards will be similarly frustrated with the new Start menu, especially if they're used to seeing all of their apps instantly. Personally, I find the focus on shortcuts and recently added files and apps to be more useful. And as of Windows 10, I just hit the Windows key and start typing to search for specific apps. (I'm glad that's still practically instantaneous on the new OS.)

I’ve only dabbled in the Windows 11 touchscreen experience so far, but in general it feels easier to hit specific targets. Microsoft has also made apps more responsive to touch, so it’s being able to quickly expand and maximize windows feels less frustrating. You still won’t mistake Windows 11 for iPadOS, but I never expected Microsoft to go that far. This new OS is simply better for laptops that have touchscreens, and it’s far more usable for hybrid tablets like the Surface Pro.

While I've found Windows 11 pleasant overall, I'll be interested to see how mainstream users react to all of the changes. Some members of Engadget's staff initially found the new design to be ugly (some warmed up to it later), and at least one was grateful I explained how to move the taskbar back to the left. It's tough for Microsoft to make any major changes to Windows without having users throw a fit. (Remember everything that happened around Windows 8?) So I expect the initial reaction isn't going to be welcoming. Let's just say I'm glad I'm no longer in IT support for this transition.

Microsoft

So, who needs Windows 11?

To paraphrase Thanos, Windows 11 is inevitable. It's going to start rolling out to eligible Windows 10 users today, and it will ship with new PCs this Fall. Aside from re-learning the taskbar and Start menu functionality, there's not much of a reason to avoid it. The new Secure Boot requirements will make it a safer OS overall; gamers will eventually get faster loading times; and everyone can appreciate the clean new aesthetic.

It's a step forward, even if it isn't as momentous as Windows 10. It's also hard to ignore the story behind the new OS, which makes Windows 11 feel more like a way for Microsoft to save face after an embarrassing failure. In the fall of 2019, the company announced Windows 10X, an OS variant meant for dual-screened PCs. Those devices, like the intriguing Surface Neo, failed to arrive. (It's unclear if the complex new hardware was the roadblock, or if PC makers were waiting for Windows 10X to be completed.)

Microsoft announced last year that it was shifting the focus of 10X to single-screened devices, and it put the final nail in the coffin this May, when it said that Windows 10X development had stopped. A few weeks later, we got word that Microsoft was gearing up to reveal the next version of Windows, and shortly after that the Windows 11 leak occurred. On June 24th, with practically all of its new features spoiled, Microsoft officially revealed its new OS.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

In my head, I imagine the frantic meetings around Windows 10X's rocky development like something from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. With dual-screened devices a no-show, maybe they could just repurpose that work for traditional laptops, a harried Panos Panay would say. But why even make that a separate version of Windows 10? The PC market is pretty hot right now, perhaps there's a way to capitalize on that? And at some point, someone just said "Why not just go to 11?" A stunned silence. Applause all around.

Not to sound too cynical, but releasing a new OS is an easy way to encourage people to buy new computers. That's particularly true now that we're relying on our PCs more than ever, as many people are still working and doing schoolwork from home. A new version of Windows is no simple thing, and it’ll surely get more headlines and media attention than a mere Windows 10 update. (Stares directly into camera.)

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/windows-11-review-microsoft-mindful-os-200028040.html?src=rss

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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With baseball season starting, AT&T TV is the only streaming choice for many fans.

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/with-baseball-season-starting-att-tv-is-the-only-streaming-choice-for-many-fans-3/

With baseball season starting, AT&T TV is the only streaming choice for many fans.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Change is the norm when it comes to live TV streaming services, but AT&T TV has had a particularly tumultuous history. It started life as DirecTV Now in 2016, and in the time since it has added and dropped channels, changed its name twice and hiked prices numerous times. The latest iteration no longer requires a contract or a set-top box — yay! — making it similar at first blush to competitors like YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV. The downside is the high price: A monthly subscription starts at $70 and to get access to your local regional sports networks (RSNs) you’ll need to pay for the $85 package.

$85 plan has robust regional sports channels for NBA and MLB games.

Fun channel-surfing capabilities.

Don’t Like

Expensive, especially with sports and DVR add-ons.

$70 plan has fewer channels for more money than YouTube TV.

Roku app doesn’t work as well as Apple TV’s or web.

Now playing: Watch this: Live TV streaming services for cord cutters: How to choose…

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Those local channels, which carry the regular season games of NBA basketball and MLB baseball teams, are the best reason to subscribe to AT&T TV. No competitor has nearly as many RSNs, so for fans who want to catch all the action of their team live, paying $85 per month to AT&T TV is often the only streaming option. (As a bonus, that price also includes a year of HBO Max and NBA League Pass Premium.) A cable TV subscription, which typically also offers RSNs, is likely cheaper, however.

Read more: MLB 2021 streaming: How to watch the Dodgers, Mets, Yankees and more baseball without cable

Using the AT&T app feels more cablelike than any of its competitors, with a unique swiping channel-change mechanic. The service is best appreciated on an Apple TV because even though Roku is our favorite streaming device, its app lacks the ability to pause live TV. If you crave a familiar interface and want access to its extensive sports coverage AT&T TV is worth a look, but if you don’t need those RSNs, then YouTube TV, which costs less and has more non-sports channels, is a better choice.

Optional contract, multiple channel packages

One of the benefits of choosing a live TV streaming service over cable is that you’re not tied to a contract. AT&T TV does offer an optional two-year contract, but it’s not a very good deal.

Off-contract, the basic package starts at $70 a month with 65-plus channels and a 20-hour DVR but it does miss channels such as MLB Network, NFL Network and Travel Channel. For cord-cutters who want to follow their local NBA or MLB team, AT&T TV’s $85 Choice package is a better option, with access to those regional sports networks. The Ultimate tier costs $95 with more channels including Starz and Encore, while the “whole enchilada” $140 Premier level adds even more channels with HBO (and HBO Max), Starz, Showtime and Cinemax.

The AT&T TV Stream set-top box is free if you get a contract, but you can also use devices like Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Opting for the contract gives you an AT&T TV Stream set-top box, an unlimited cloud DVR (normally $10 per month extra) and a discount on the first year — with a steep price increase in year 2.

With a contract, the basic Entertainment package’s first-year price is $60 per month, which then jumps to $93 per month in the second. The Choice package drops from $85 per month to $65 per month for the first year of the two-year contract, but the second year would jack the price back up to $110 per month. Those with Choice on a two-year contract would also be on the hook for paying an additional $8.49 per month as a “regional sports fee” for two years. Month-to-month Choice subscribers don’t have to pay the regional sports fee.

Those second-year price hikes make the overall cost of both packages higher than simply going month-to-month for two years, so we don’t recommend getting a contract.

Premium live TV streaming services compared

Premium services YouTube TV AT&T TV Hulu Plus Live TV FuboTV Base price $65/month $70/month $65/month $65/month Total number of top 100 channels 75 61 62 65 ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC channels Yes Yes Yes Yes Record shows for later (cloud DVR) Yes (keep for 9 months) Yes (20 hours, unlimited hours for $10/mo.) Yes (50 hours, 200 hours plus commercial skip for $10/mo.) Yes (30GB, 500GB for $10/mo.) Step-up packages with more channels No Yes Yes Yes Simultaneous streams per account 3 20 2 ($10 option for unlimited) 2 ($6 option for 3)

AT&T recently upped the number of concurrent in-home streams to 20, which is good news to households with lots of people who want to watch at once. The out-of-home concurrent streaming limit is three, which should still be plenty.

What’s it like to use?

AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015, and that service’s history still informs the functionality of AT&T TV. Our favorite cablelike feature is the ability to swipe left or right to change channels, even if it’s not quite instantaneous. There’s about three to five seconds of loading time when changing channels.

AT&T TV comes with a program guide

Sarah Tew/CNET

When using AT&T TV with a remote, the controls center around the direction buttons and Enter/OK. This makes it relatively quick to pick up and use, and also means you don’t need a complicated remote control to make it work, making the minimalist Apple TV clicker a great companion. If you want the full “surfing” experience on a universal remote, you could even program left and right arrows into your Channel up/down buttons.

The service loads straight into the last channel watched — further enhancing its cable credentials — and pressing down brings up the interface with a choice of the 14-day guide, Watch Now, My Library recordings and a Discover option. Navigation is intuitive and quick, something that the painfully slow YouTube TV is not.

While Roku is very similar to Apple TV, there is one major difference: There’s still no live TV pause on Roku. This is also potentially frustrating to sports fans who need to pause the action momentarily. Instead, pressing pause freezes the screen while the program keeps playing in the background. Meanwhile Apple TV will allow two minutes until it cuts to the live feed and pauses again, and will keep skipping forward and pausing each minute or two until you press Play. In comparison, YouTube TV lets you pause indefinitely, just like a normal DVR.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Depending on the tier you choose, AT&T TV’s DVR offers between 20 and an unlimited number of hours, while YouTube TV offers unlimited storage by default. YouTube TV lets you keep recordings for up to 9 months, while you are limited to 30 days on AT&T TV. If you live in a small to medium-size household, the service offers three simultaneous streams without the need to pay extra.

Some programs do give you the option to restart, and pressing down on the Apple TV remote will bring up show info, a recording option and Restart (if available). Pressing the Select button will pause the program. In contrast, pressing the middle button on Roku brings up a different menu with similar functionality but no pause, but there is the ability to restart.

I briefly used a Fire TV and found the experience closer to Apple TV than Roku. If you don’t have an Apple TV, the Fire TV is my next choice for using the service. Using an iPhone (an iPhone 6 Plus on AT&T, to be specific) also offered a smooth experience with quick channel changes.

Is it worth your $70 (or $85) a month?

The cable experience is what AT&T TV is all about — the swipe left and right functionality is quite inspired. While the company has really bulked up on its content since we last looked in 2019 — when it had fewer than 50 of the most popular channels — the service still lags behind every other rival in terms of breadth. The real reason to get it is if you’re an avid sports fan — the $85 Choice package with its twin draws of HBO and RSNs is unmatched by the competition.

If you want to save money though? Stay clear — almost any other service offers a better value than this, and many cable packages are comparable. Even if you’re an Apple user, other services such as YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV offer a superior and cheaper experience.

Channel comparison

Below you’ll find a chart that’s a smaller version of this massive channel comparison. It contains the top 100 channels from each service. Some notes:

Yes = The channel is available on the cheapest pricing tier.

No = The channel isn’t available at all on that service.

$ = The channel is available for an extra fee, either a la carte or as part of a more expensive package or add-on.

Not every channel a service carries is listed, just the “top 100” as determined by CNET’s editors. Minor channels such as AXS TV, CNBC World, Discovery Life, GSN, POP and Universal Kids didn’t make the cut.

Regional sports networks — channels devoted to showing regular-season games of particular pro baseball, basketball and hockey teams — are not listed.

Top 100 channels compared

Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) Total channels: 38 65 75 62 61 ABC No Yes Yes Yes Yes CBS No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fox Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes NBC Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes PBS No No Yes No No CW No Yes Yes Yes Yes MyNetworkTV No No Yes Yes Yes

Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) A&E Yes Yes No Yes Yes ACC Network No $ Yes Yes $ AMC Yes Yes Yes No Yes Animal Planet No Yes Yes Yes Yes BBC America Yes Yes Yes No Yes BBC World News $ $ Yes No $ BET Yes Yes Yes No Yes Big Ten Network $ Yes Yes Yes $ Bloomberg TV Yes No No Yes Yes Boomerang $ No No Yes Yes Bravo Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) Cartoon Network Yes No Yes Yes Yes CBS Sports Network No Yes Yes Yes $ Cheddar Yes Yes Yes Yes $ Cinemax No No $ $ $ CMT $ Yes Yes No Yes CNBC $ Yes Yes Yes Yes Appradab Yes No Yes Yes Yes Comedy Central Yes Yes Yes No Yes Cooking Channel $ $ No $ $ Destination America $ $ No $ $ Discovery Channel Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Disney Channel No Yes Yes Yes Yes Disney Junior No Yes Yes Yes Yes Disney XD No Yes Yes Yes Yes DIY $ $ No $ $ E! Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes EPIX $ No $ No $ ESPN No Yes Yes Yes Yes ESPN 2 No Yes Yes Yes Yes ESPNEWS No $ Yes Yes $ ESPNU No $ Yes Yes $ Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) Food Network Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Fox Business $ Yes Yes Yes Yes Fox News Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Fox Sports 1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Fox Sports 2 $ Yes Yes Yes $ Freeform No Yes Yes Yes Yes FX Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes FX Movies $ $ Yes Yes $ FXX $ Yes Yes Yes Yes FYI $ Yes No Yes $ Golf Channel $ Yes Yes Yes $ Hallmark $ Yes No No Yes HBO/HBO Max No No $ $ $ HGTV Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes History Yes Yes No Yes Yes HLN Yes No Yes Yes Yes IFC Yes Yes Yes No Yes Investigation Discovery Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Lifetime Yes Yes No Yes Yes Lifetime Movie Network $ Yes No Yes $ Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) MLB Network $ $ Yes No $ Motor Trend No Yes Yes Yes Yes MSNBC Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MTV $ Yes Yes No Yes MTV2 $ $ No No Yes National Geographic Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Nat Geo Wild $ $ Yes Yes $ NBA TV $ $ Yes No $ NBC Sports Network Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Newsy Yes $ Yes No No NFL Network Yes Yes Yes No No NFL Red Zone $ $ $ No No NHL Network $ $ No No $ Nickelodeon No Yes Yes No Yes Nick Jr. Yes Yes No No $ Nicktoons $ $ No No $ OWN No Yes Yes No $ Oxygen $ Yes Yes Yes $ Paramount Network $ Yes Yes No Yes Channel Sling Blue ($35) Fubo TV ($60) YouTube TV ($65) Hulu with Live TV ($65) AT&T TV ($70) Science $ $ No $ $ SEC Network No $ Yes Yes $ Showtime $ $ $ $ $ Smithsonian No Yes Yes Yes $ Starz $ No $ $ $ Sundance TV $ Yes Yes No Yes Syfy Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Tastemade $ Yes Yes No $ TBS Yes No Yes Yes Yes TCM $ No Yes Yes Yes Telemundo No Yes Yes Yes Yes Tennis Channel $ $ No No $ TLC Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes TNT Yes No Yes Yes Yes Travel Channel Yes Yes Yes Yes $ TruTV Yes No Yes Yes Yes TV Land $ Yes Yes No Yes USA Network Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes VH1 $ Yes Yes No Yes Vice Yes Yes No Yes Yes Weather Channel No Yes No No $ WE tv $ Yes Yes No Yes

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An overview of the third-party cookie crackdown

n March 2021, Google announced on its Ads & Commerce blog that it was “Charting a course towards a more privacy-first web”. The blog post was a re-affirmation of Google’s commitment, first revealed in January 2020, to remove support for third-party tracking cookies in Chrome from 2022, and contained further details about how it plans to protect user anonymity once these are phased out. But it was also a sign of just how much the conversation around third-party cookies has shifted over the past few years.

The debate around third-party cookies, which for years have been heavily relied-on by the marketing and advertising industry to compile records of a user’s browsing history and build up a profile of their interests, preferences and habits, stretches back as far as 2013, when Firefox, Safari and even Internet Explorer all began implementing some form of default blocking of third-party cookies or ad tracking.

At the time, this decision to disallow third-party cookies – even coming from most of the major internet browsers – was highly controversial among industry commentators. They argued that cookies were necessary for the ad campaigns that fuel the internet to function, or that cookies – at their heart simply a piece of technology designed to retain preferences by identifying when the same user returns to a website – are not inherently intrusive, rather that certain applications of them are.

And for all that steps to block third-party cookies were taken by web browsers very early on, it took several more years for some of them to implement comprehensive blocking, as well as for the web browser with the largest share of the market – Google Chrome – to join them. During that time, cookies remained pivotal to the way that marketers tracked, targeted and measured the impact of their campaigns; but the conversation around privacy on the web, particularly as it related to advertising, was changing.

Fast forward to 2021, and the demise of the third-party cookie (nicknamed the “cookiepocalypse”) is now an accepted fact, with discussions turning instead to how marketers can prepare, and what kinds of solutions and alternatives should be adopted. But how did we get to the point where one of the biggest web advertising heavyweights is withdrawing its support for third-party cookies, and where do we go from here? In this briefing, I’ll look at the recent developments that led to our current situation, the stances being taken by key industry players, and the alternatives that promise to balance privacy with marketing effectiveness.

Covered in this briefing:

The cookiepocalypse: a timeline

An end to cookies, but not to behavioural targeting

Alternatives to third-party cookies: what should marketers use?First, second and zero-party data Contextual targeting Alternative forms of measurement

A more positive – and private – future

The cookiepocalypse: a timeline

While 2019 was by no means the beginning of the debate about cookies – as we’ve established – it was in many ways when the tide really began to turn against third-party tracking cookies, with a number of huge developments taking place in a short space of time. And while the calamitous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic overtook the global conversation early into 2020, significant developments on the privacy and tracking front still took place in 2020 and early 2021 as players like Apple and Mozilla entrenched their established positions and moved to block additional forms of tracking.

March 2019: Apple releases Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) 2.1 for Safari, the latest version of a feature designed to prevent cross-site tracking by placing limitations on cookies and other website data. First introduced in 2017, ITP prevented cookies from being used in a third-party context after 24 hours, and purged website data and cookies altogether after 30 days if the user hadn’t interacted with the website again during that time.

Adtech companies responded to the implementation of ITP by finding ways to make third-party cookies behave like first-party cookies, circumventing the block. So, with ITP 2.1, Safari squashed this workaround by wiping first-party cookies after seven days. In May 2019, it upped the ante with ITP 2.2, which deleted certain types of first-party cookies after just 24 hours, further closing the loophole. This seriously rattled advertisers, as Safari is the world’s second-most popular browser (with a current market share of 19.14%, according to GlobalStats) and the default for anyone using a Mac, Macbook, iPad or iPhone.

May 2019: At Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, the Chromium team announces upcoming changes that will give users more visibility over the types of cookies being set in their browser and options to block them. It also announces plans to “reduce the ways in which browsers can be passively fingerprinted” – fingerprinting being a catch-all term for more difficult to detect methods of user tracking that subvert cookie controls.

July 2019: The ICO publishes stringent new guidance that rules out many of the pretexts that advertisers have been using to set cookies in users’ browsers without actively obtaining their consent. The guidance specifies that websites:

Cannot rely on implied consent for the use of cookies

Do need to obtain consent for analytics cookies (which are not considered essential to the functioning of the site)

Cannot use a ‘cookie wall’, which restricts access to the site until users consent to cookies being set

Cannot rely on legitimate interests, a lawful basis for processing personal data under GDPR, to set cookies without consent.

August 2019: A study by researchers from the University of Michigan and Ruhr-University Bochum finds that 86% of cookie consent notices offer no other options than a consent button, while 57% are found to use dark patterns in order to influence a user into consenting.

September 2019: Mozilla announces that Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), which blocks third-party tracking cookies and cryptominers, will be enabled by default in Firefox on desktop and Android. It had previously enabled ETP by default for new users in June; the September update deploys it for all Firefox users across the board. While Firefox has a much smaller market share than Chrome or Safari (currently standing at 3.76% worldwide), it is still the world’s third-most used web browser and its implementation of cookie blocking by default is another blow for marketers and advertisers.

Apple also releases ITP version 2.3 for Safari, which blocks two additional workarounds that ad companies have been using to track users: localStorage and document.referrer.

October 2019: The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rules that pre-checked consent boxes for the use of cookies are not valid, and that consent requires an active opt-in. It also rules that users must be provided with information on cookie duration and whether third parties have access to them. Given the findings of the August study by researchers in Michigan and Bochum, this means that the vast majority of websites are contravening EU law by not giving users the option to decline cookies.

January 2020: The loudest death toll yet sounds for third-party cookies as Google announces that it will withdraw support for third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022. Executives at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) issue a joint statement warning that, “Google’s decision to block third-party cookies in Chrome could have major competitive impacts for digital businesses, consumer services, and technological innovation”, and that it “would threaten to substantially disrupt much of the infrastructure of today’s Internet without providing any viable alternative.”

March 2020: Apple confirms “full third-party cookie blocking” in iOS, iPadOS and Safari, blocking cookies for cross-site resources by default across the board. John Wilander, the WebKit engineer behind Safari’s ITP, writes that, “This is a significant improvement for privacy since it removes any sense of exceptions or “a little bit of cross-site tracking is allowed.”” He celebrates that Safari is now “the first mainstream browser to fully block third-party cookies by default.”

In the same month, AdExchanger reports that an unnamed business group within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is petitioning Google to delay the phase-out of third-party cookies in Chrome in light of the unfolding coronavirus pandemic. Google product manager Marshall Vale later writes to the W3C to say that it is “premature” to discuss any adjustment to the cookie phase-out timeline, although he promises that Google will “revisit” the topic as the situation evolves.

June 2020: At WWDC20 – Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference – Apple announces that the next version of iOS (iOS 14) will ask users whether they want to be tracked by any given app, and that app developers will be required to self-report the kinds of permissions that their apps require. This development, called App Tracking Transparency or ATT, was later pushed back beyond the launch of iOS 14 to give developers additional time to prepare; it will now form part of iOS 14.5, which entered developer beta on 1st February, and is expected to be deployed fully at some point in March.

While not directly related to cookies, Apple’s move to require apps to disclose the data they track is in line with its broader push towards protecting user privacy, and is particularly relevant to the question of whether and how users can be tracked within mobile apps, where cookies (which are browser-based) cannot be set.

November 2020: Apple announces further enhancements to ITP to defend against something called CNAME Cloaking – a tactic that maps an internal domain to an external one and allows a tracker to circumvent the division between first-party and third-party cookies, giving it the same level of access as a first-party cookie.

February 2021: Firefox introduces “Total Cookie Protection” as a feature of ETP Strict, an optional, more privacy-conscious version of ETP.

According to the blog post published by Mozilla, Total Cookie Protection “works by maintaining a separate “cookie jar” for each website you visit. Any time a website, or third-party content embedded in a website, deposits a cookie in your browser, that cookie is confined to the cookie jar assigned to that website, such that it is not allowed to be shared with any other website.” It goes on to add that Total Cookie Protection “makes a limited exception for cross-site cookies when they are needed for non-tracking purposes, such as those used by popular third-party login providers … Such momentary exceptions allow for strong privacy protection without affecting your browsing experience.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that “according to people with knowledge of the matter”, Google is exploring an Android version of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. To this end, it is “seeking input” from stakeholders such as developers and advertisers in a bid to find a solution that does not compromise their ability to generate revenue. The report goes on to state that Google’s solution “is likely to be less strict and won’t require a prompt to opt in to data tracking like Apple’s … The exploration into an Android alternative to Apple’s feature is still in the early stages, and Google hasn’t decided when, or if, it will go ahead with the changes.”

March 2021: Google reveals further details on how it plans to handle user identification and tracking in the blog post ‘Charting a course towards a more privacy-first web’. In particular, it confirms that it does not have any plans to create “alternate identifiers” that would track users around the web – which many marketers, publishers and content creators see as a betrayal of their interests. Instead, Google intends to draw on the vast amount of first-party data at its disposal – thanks to its ownership of properties like Youtube, Google Maps, and of course Google Search – to target users, which will further entrench its dominant position as one of the most powerful online advertisers.

Google has also not made any commitments to phasing out the use of Google Advertising IDs, or GAIDs, which are used to anonymously track user ad activity on Android devices, in a similar fashion to a third-party cookie. Given that increasing amounts of activity take place within mobile apps and away from the open web, this would arguably be a bigger concession for Google – and while there have been hints that Google may implement an ATT-style solution on Android, it is still ultimately in Google’s interests to be able to track users and the effectiveness of its own advertising, whatever that entails.

An end to cookies, but not to behavioural targeting

While Google has been making all the right noises in its cookie-related announcements about the need for privacy on the web, in reality it is not about to do anything that would seriously compromise its own ability to effectively target and drive conversions from advertising. Marketers always knew this, of course – but had hoped that Google would throw its considerable weight behind one of a number of proposed industry solutions such as Unified ID, an initiative with widespread support among adtech providers that uses an email-based identifier to target users while purportedly giving them more control over how their data is shared.

Instead, Google has made it clear that it is only interested in implementing home-grown solutions like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) – an interest-based targeting method that Google claims will provide “at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising”. Marketers are waiting to see whether this claim is borne out – but what is evident is that while cookies may be going away, behavioural targeting will not.

FLoC is a more anonymised method of targeting than third-party tracking cookies in that it uses machine learning to divide users into groups with similar interests and target ads based on those interests. As Google puts it, this method “effectively hides individuals “in the crowd” and uses on-device processing to keep a person’s web history private on the browser.” Users may not be tracked across browsers or across devices, but their activity within Chrome will still be tracked and used for ad targeting, with presumably no capacity to opt out (except by using another browser). This has not gone over well with privacy advocates, and privacy-conscious users may see it as little improvement over third-party tracking cookies.

Meanwhile, as marketers wait to discover more information about the effectiveness of FLoC, some of the drawbacks are already becoming clear: FLoC’s interest-based groups will not be precise enough to measure interest in a specific product, which jeopardises advertising methods like product-specific retargeting. FLoC will also make attribution and measuring campaign effectiveness much more difficult, with metrics like viewability potentially taking precedence over conversions.

There’s also the issue that the introduction of FLoC only promises to further entrench Google’s position as the dominant force in web advertising. Google’s blog post was a reminder that in a world without third-party cookies, first-party data will reign supreme – and fortunately for Google, it has access to a wealth of it, through properties like Search, Youtube and Maps. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has already launched a probe into Google for “suspected breaches of competition law” over its plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome, following complaints that Google’s plans for a replacement would “abuse a dominance position” in advertising.

Marketers have known for some time that the mass withdrawal of support for third-party tracking cookies by the major web browsers would require changes to the way they track and measure campaigns, and many have been preparing for the change for some time. Nevertheless, a considerable number have been left dismayed by the approach that Google has chosen to take instead.

With Google retreating further behind its own walled garden with the introduction of FLoC, and the second- and third-most-used browsers (Safari and Firefox) blocking identity-based tracking of almost every kind, where should marketers go from here?

Alternatives to third-party cookies: what should marketers use?

As it became increasingly clear that the writing was on the wall for third-party cookies, the industry has been abuzz with talk of alternatives: alternative identifiers, alternative forms of measurement, alternative data sources, and alternative forms of advertising.

Some of these are more viable than others. Many alternative identifiers, for instance, encounter the issue of the need for universal adoption: while Unified ID has attracted widespread support from adtech players, Google’s refusal to support it has thrown its future into question, and there are also doubts as to whether consumers would agree to adopt it. Another potential cookie alternative, digital fingerprinting (which uses attributes like operating system, web browser type and version, language setting and IP address to identify and track a user’s device), is seen as even more intrusive than cookies, and Safari, Firefox and Chrome have all either taken steps to block digital fingerprinting methods or have pledged to reduce the ways that users can be targeted by them. And device-level IDs, like GAIDs or Apple’s IDFA (ID for Advertisers), still present problems with regard to privacy and with cross-device tracking.

But identifiers aren’t the only means of personalising advertising for users in a meaningful way, or of measuring campaign effectiveness. With the eradication of cookies, marketers have known they’ll need to get creative, and possibly employ a variety of methods to achieve the same results that they were able to obtain with cookies. However, there are also benefits to using these alternatives. Let’s take a look at some alternatives to cookie-based targeting and measurement, and the reasons why marketers should employ them.

First, second and zero-party data

“First-party relationships are vital,” wrote Google in its Ads & Commerce blog post, and this statement isn’t just true for Google – it’s true for marketers, publishers, and businesses of every stripe. First-party data is data a business collects from its users directly, and can take a wide variety of forms, from things like internal searches carried out on an ecommerce site to previously purchased items, CRM data, loyalty programme data, and much more. All of these pieces of information can enable businesses to tailor marketing and the customer experience in a way that feels genuine and helpful rather than intrusive.

A subset of first-party data that has attracted considerable industry interest in the wake of regulations like the GDPR is ‘zero-party data’. This refers specifically to data that the consumer has shared proactively, such as profile information (which can include demographic data like date of birth and gender), content preferences, responses to polls and quizzes, and many other varieties. Again, this can be used to more authentically personalise a consumer’s experience, but without the need to infer preferences from their behaviour.

One advantage of the cookie crackdown is that it is prompting marketers and brands to look more closely at the relationships they have with their own customers, review the data they already have at their disposal, and think about smart ways to use it in marketing and advertising campaigns. And while larger businesses may seem to have an unfair advantage in that they have access to significantly more first-party data than smaller businesses, small amounts of first-party data can still be used for predictive modelling, analysed, and built out into audiences. Forming data partnerships with another organisation (data obtained in this way is known as second-party data) is another solid strategy and a way of evening out the playing field.

In other words, cookie data is far from the be-all and end-all – and using other data sources will lead to improved relationships with customers, better personalisation and more accurate results.

Contextual targeting

Contextual ad targeting, a method of delivering relevant ads based on the content of the page a user is viewing rather than who the user is (or is thought to be) has enjoyed increased attention with the looming cookiepocalypse throwing the future of behavioural targeting into question.

And although the likes of Google have signalled their intention to continue targeting users based on behaviour (just in a slightly less precise way), contextual targeting is still an option worth exploring, offering many of the same benefits in terms of ad relevance as behavioural targeting, plus some arguable advantages from a user perspective. After all, a user who reads about marketing technology for their day job might not be interested in having martech ads follow them around off the clock – but they might be interested in an ad relevant to the hobby-related article they are reading for fun.

Contextual targeting on the web has been around for decades, and to some marketers, might seem like a rather basic and outdated method of ad targeting compared with more precise cookie-based methods of targeting. However, as Patricio Robles wrote for the Econsultancy blog, “Contextual advertising in the 2020s will be more sophisticated … Better technology allows marketers to apply their first-party data to contextual ads, and they will also be able to target by various non-unique attributes, including device type, location, and time of day, many of which can impact the effectiveness of campaigns.”

Alternative forms of measurement

Measurement and attribution were already challenging enough for marketers before the demise of the third-party cookie. In an online world that has fragmented into countless touchpoints, channels and devices, how can marketers determine exactly which of their actions moved the needle or resulted in a conversion?

But many have seen this as a positive opportunity: cookies were far from a perfect solution to marketing measurement, particularly in the age of mobile where so many interactions already take place away from browsers. And while there isn’t one single, ideal measurement solution that will allow marketers to comprehensively measure campaign performance in the post-cookie age, a variety of methods exist with different strengths marketers can call on in different circumstances to achieve their goals. Here are just a few of those methods:

Econometrics/Marketing Mix Modelling

Econometrics, also called Marketing Mix Modelling, is a method of using statistical analysis to understand the impact of a range of different variables – from sales promotions to the weather or the economy – on marketing KPIs.

It pulls in data from a wide range of different sources, meaning that it depends relatively little on third-party cookie data, but it is also most effective when run over time, using a large number of data points. This makes it less of a viable option for marketers who don’t already have a lot of data. Marketing Mix Modelling is useful for informing high-level decisions like budget split between channels, but can’t inform granular decisions like how to optimise bids.

Incrementality testing

Incrementality testing is a specific variety of A/B testing that allows marketers to measure the lift provided by a particular type of advertising by comparing the conversion rate of one group, which was not exposed to that advertising, with the conversion rate of another that was. The difference between the two groups’ conversion rates can be used to calculate the incremental lift provided by that advertising – assuming that all other variables between the two groups are the same.

In other words, incrementality testing is most effective when you can control all of the variables that are likely to impact on uplift – otherwise you might be attributing conversions to the wrong one. Incrementality testing can be useful for determining the true impact of a particular piece of advertising, channel or campaign on conversions and finding out whether it offers value (and how much) or just takes ‘credit’ for an action that would have occurred anyway.

Brand lift studies

Brand lift studies are a type of market research that surveys consumers to find out whether their level of awareness, their perception of a brand, and/or their likelihood of making a purchase has changed after being exposed to an ad. Many ad providers, including Facebook and Google, offer native brand lift tools to help marketers measure the impact of their ad campaigns.

Brand lift studies are useful for providing detail on the effectiveness of a specific campaign or channel, but are difficult to generalise beyond that. Wider brand studies can also be carried out as a means of obtaining consented, first-party data; providing a benchmark that future brand lift studies can be measured against; and obtaining more in-depth insights from consumers like their opinions on the category as a whole.

More detail on other cookie-less methods of measurement, including attribution analysis, controlled and uncontrolled audience testing, and geo-testing, can be found in Daniel Gilbert’s insightful post, How to measure marketing in a world without cookie tracking, as well as in Econsultancy’s Measuring Digital Marketing Effectiveness Best Practice Guide.

A more positive – and private – future

The announcement by Apple that it will be prompting users for their consent to share data with apps, and by Google that it will not be supporting an identity-based alternative to cookies going forward, has collectively galvanised the industry into searching for sustainable alternatives to the old methods of targeting and measuring ads. This has not been – and will not be – an easy transition for marketing, but many believe the outcome will be beneficial for marketers and consumers alike. At the end of 2020, Harmony Murphy, GM Advertising at Ebay UK, gave her views on the ‘post-cookie’ future for marketing in a 2021 predictions roundup for Econsultancy, saying,

“Instead of relying on quick wins, a cookie-less, premium, user first experience is a move in the right direction for brands. After all, this is what advertising is about: quality engagement with consumers that helps them and genuinely delivers ROI for the brand. It’s about engagement and relevance, not irritation.”

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mohammedalagha · 7 years ago

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The Complete Guide to Direct Traffic in Google Analytics

Posted by tombennet

When it comes to direct traffic in Analytics, there are two deeply entrenched misconceptions.

The first is that it’s caused almost exclusively by users typing an address into their browser (or clicking on a bookmark). The second is that it’s a Bad Thing, not because it has any overt negative impact on your site’s performance, but rather because it’s somehow immune to further analysis. The prevailing attitude amongst digital marketers is that direct traffic is an unavoidable inconvenience; as a result, discussion of direct is typically limited to ways of attributing it to other channels, or side-stepping the issues associated with it.

In this article, we’ll be taking a fresh look at direct traffic in modern Google Analytics. As well as exploring the myriad ways in which referrer data can be lost, we’ll look at some tools and tactics you can start using immediately to reduce levels of direct traffic in your reports. Finally, we’ll discover how advanced analysis and segmentation can unlock the mysteries of direct traffic and shed light on what might actually be your most valuable users.

What is direct traffic?

In short, Google Analytics will report a traffic source of "direct" when it has no data on how the session arrived at your website, or when the referring source has been configured to be ignored. You can think of direct as GA’s fall-back option for when its processing logic has failed to attribute a session to a particular source.

To properly understand the causes and fixes for direct traffic, it’s important to understand exactly how GA processes traffic sources. The following flow-chart illustrates how sessions are bucketed — note that direct sits right at the end as a final "catch-all" group.

Broadly speaking, and disregarding user-configured overrides, GA’s processing follows this sequence of checks:

AdWords parameters > Campaign overrides > UTM campaign parameters > Referred by a search engine > Referred by another website > Previous campaign within timeout period > Direct

Note the penultimate processing step (previous campaign within timeout), which has a significant impact on the direct channel. Consider a user who discovers your site via organic search, then returns via direct a week later. Both sessions would be attributed to organic search. In fact, campaign data persists for up to six months by default. The key point here is that Google Analytics is already trying to minimize the impact of direct traffic for you.

What causes direct traffic?

Contrary to popular belief, there are actually many reasons why a session might be missing campaign and traffic source data. Here we will run through some of the most common.

1. Manual address entry and bookmarks

The classic direct-traffic scenario, this one is largely unavoidable. If a user types a URL into their browser’s address bar or clicks on a browser bookmark, that session will appear as direct traffic.

Simple as that.

2. HTTPS > HTTP

When a user follows a link on a secure (HTTPS) page to a non-secure (HTTP) page, no referrer data is passed, meaning the session appears as direct traffic instead of as a referral. Note that this is intended behavior. It’s part of how the secure protocol was designed, and it does not affect other scenarios: HTTP to HTTP, HTTPS to HTTPS, and even HTTP to HTTPS all pass referrer data.

So, if your referral traffic has tanked but direct has spiked, it could be that one of your major referrers has migrated to HTTPS. The inverse is also true: If you’ve migrated to HTTPS and are linking to HTTP websites, the traffic you’re driving to them will appear in their Analytics as direct.

If your referrers have moved to HTTPS and you’re stuck on HTTP, you really ought to consider migrating to HTTPS. Doing so (and updating your backlinks to point to HTTPS URLs) will bring back any referrer data which is being stripped from cross-protocol traffic. SSL certificates can now be obtained for free thanks to automated authorities like LetsEncrypt, but that’s not to say you should neglect to explore the potentially-significant SEO implications of site migrations. Remember, HTTPS and HTTP/2 are the future of the web.

If, on the other hand, you’ve already migrated to HTTPS and are concerned about your users appearing to partner websites as direct traffic, you can implement the meta referrer tag. Cyrus Shepard has written about this on Moz before, so I won’t delve into it now. Suffice to say, it’s a way of telling browsers to pass some referrer data to non-secure sites, and can be implemented as a <meta> element or HTTP header.

3. Missing or broken tracking code

Let’s say you’ve launched a new landing page template and forgotten to include the GA tracking code. Or, to use a scenario I’m encountering more and more frequently, imagine your GTM container is a horrible mess of poorly configured triggers, and your tracking code is simply failing to fire.

Users land on this page without tracking code. They click on a link to a deeper page which does have tracking code. From GA’s perspective, the first hit of the session is the second page visited, meaning that the referrer appears as your own website (i.e. a self-referral). If your domain is on the referral exclusion list (as per default configuration), the session is bucketed as direct. This will happen even if the first URL is tagged with UTM campaign parameters.

As a short-term fix, you can try to repair the damage by simply adding the missing tracking code. To prevent it happening again, carry out a thorough Analytics audit, move to a GTM-based tracking implementation, and promote a culture of data-driven marketing.

4. Improper redirection

This is an easy one. Don’t use meta refreshes or JavaScript-based redirects — these can wipe or replace referrer data, leading to direct traffic in Analytics. You should also be meticulous with your server-side redirects, and — as is often recommended by SEOs — audit your redirect file frequently. Complex chains are more likely to result in a loss of referrer data, and you run the risk of UTM parameters getting stripped out.

Once again, control what you can: use carefully mapped (i.e. non-chained) code 301 server-side redirects to preserve referrer data wherever possible.

5. Non-web documents

Links in Microsoft Word documents, slide decks, or PDFs do not pass referrer information. By default, users who click these links will appear in your reports as direct traffic. Clicks from native mobile apps (particularly those with embedded "in-app" browsers) are similarly prone to stripping out referrer data.

To a degree, this is unavoidable. Much like so-called “dark social” visits (discussed in detail below), non-web links will inevitably result in some quantity of direct traffic. However, you also have an opportunity here to control the controllables.

If you publish whitepapers or offer downloadable PDF guides, for example, you should be tagging the embedded hyperlinks with UTM campaign parameters. You’d never even contemplate launching an email marketing campaign without campaign tracking (I hope), so why would you distribute any other kind of freebie without similarly tracking its success? In some ways this is even more important, since these kinds of downloadables often have a longevity not seen in a single email campaign. Here’s an example of a properly tagged URL which we would embed as a link:

http://ift.tt/2ifQkVi?..._medium=offline_document&utm_campaign=201711_utm_whitepaper

The same goes for URLs in your offline marketing materials. For major campaigns it’s common practice to select a short, memorable URL (e.g. moz.com/tv/) and design an entirely new landing page. It’s possible to bypass page creation altogether: simply redirect the vanity URL to an existing page URL which is properly tagged with UTM parameters.

So, whether you tag your URLs directly, use redirected vanity URLs, or — if you think UTM parameters are ugly — opt for some crazy-ass hash-fragment solution with GTM (read more here), the takeaway is the same: use campaign parameters wherever it’s appropriate to do so.

6. “Dark social”

This is a big one, and probably the least well understood by marketers.

The term “dark social” was first coined back in 2012 by Alexis Madrigal in an article for The Atlantic. Essentially it refers to methods of social sharing which cannot easily be attributed to a particular source, like email, instant messaging, Skype, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.

Recent studies have found that upwards of 80% of consumers’ outbound sharing from publishers’ and marketers’ websites now occurs via these private channels. In terms of numbers of active users, messaging apps are outpacing social networking apps. All the activity driven by these thriving platforms is typically bucketed as direct traffic by web analytics software.

People who use the ambiguous phrase “social media marketing” are typically referring to advertising: you broadcast your message and hope people will listen. Even if you overcome consumer indifference with a well-targeted campaign, any subsequent interactions are affected by their very public nature. The privacy of dark social, by contrast, represents a potential goldmine of intimate, targeted, and relevant interactions with high conversion potential. Nebulous and difficult-to-track though it may be, dark social has the potential to let marketers tap into elusive power of word of mouth.

So, how can we minimize the amount of dark social traffic which is bucketed under direct? The unfortunate truth is that there is no magic bullet: proper attribution of dark social requires rigorous campaign tracking. The optimal approach will vary greatly based on your industry, audience, proposition, and so on. For many websites, however, a good first step is to provide convenient and properly configured sharing buttons for private platforms like email, WhatsApp, and Slack, thereby ensuring that users share URLs appended with UTM parameters (or vanity/shortened URLs which redirect to the same). This will go some way towards shining a light on part of your dark social traffic.

Checklist: Minimizing direct traffic

To summarize what we’ve already discussed, here are the steps you can take to minimize the level of unnecessary direct traffic in your reports:

Migrate to HTTPS: Not only is the secure protocol your gateway to HTTP/2 and the future of the web, it will also have an enormously positive effect on your ability to track referral traffic.

Manage your use of redirects: Avoid chains and eliminate client-side redirection in favour of carefully-mapped, single-hop, server-side 301s. If you use vanity URLs to redirect to pages with UTM parameters, be meticulous.

Get really good at campaign tagging: Even amongst data-driven marketers I encounter the belief that UTM begins and ends with switching on automatic tagging in your email marketing software. Others go to the other extreme, doing silly things like tagging internal links. Control what you can, and your ability to carry out meaningful attribution will markedly improve.

Conduct an Analytics audit: Data integrity is vital, so consider this essential when assessing the success of your marketing. It’s not simply a case of checking for missing track code: good audits involve a review of your measurement plan and rigorous testing at page and property-level.

Adhere to these principles, and it’s often possible to achieve a dramatic reduction in the level of direct traffic reported in Analytics. The following example involved an HTTPS migration, GTM migration (as part of an Analytics review), and an overhaul of internal campaign tracking processes over the course of about 6 months:

But the saga of direct traffic doesn’t end there! Once this channel is “clean” — that is, once you’ve minimized the number of avoidable pollutants — what remains might actually be one of your most valuable traffic segments.

Analyze! Or: why direct traffic can actually be pretty cool

For reasons we’ve already discussed, traffic from bookmarks and dark social is an enormously valuable segment to analyze. These are likely to be some of your most loyal and engaged users, and it’s not uncommon to see a notably higher conversion rate for a clean direct channel compared to the site average. You should make the effort to get to know them.

The number of potential avenues to explore is infinite, but here are some good starting points:

Build meaningful custom segments, defining a subset of your direct traffic based on their landing page, location, device, repeat visit or purchase behavior, or even enhanced e-commerce interactions.

Track meaningful engagement metrics using modern GTM triggers such as element visibility and native scroll tracking. Measure how your direct users are using and viewing your content.

Watch for correlations with your other marketing activities, and use it as an opportunity to refine your tagging practices and segment definitions. Create a custom alert which watches for spikes in direct traffic.

Familiarize yourself with flow reports to get an understanding of how your direct traffic is converting. By using Goal Flow and Behavior Flow reports with segmentation, it’s often possible to glean actionable insights which can be applied to the site as a whole.

Ask your users for help! If you’ve isolated a valuable segment of traffic which eludes deeper analysis, add a button to the page offering visitors a free downloadable ebook if they tell you how they discovered your page.

Start thinking about lifetime value, if you haven’t already — overhauling your attribution model or implementing User ID are good steps towards overcoming the indifference or frustration felt by marketers towards direct traffic.

I hope this guide has been useful. With any luck, you arrived looking for ways to reduce the level of direct traffic in your reports, and left with some new ideas for how to better analyze this valuable segment of users.

Thanks for reading!

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