04-14-2017, 01:41 PM
So, I personally believe that people deserve to have big egos regarding their achievements. Even if you haven't say, found a cure for Ebola or mapped the surface of Mars, everyone has done something that is impressive!
So share! There are no standards for what can and can't go here. School accomplishments, hard work, even video game stories; what's important is that it made YOU feel impressive, and I you should hold on to that.
It'd be nice if these were shared in the form of stories, but it's not necessary. I have one from around...must have been 16ish.
...
Growing up in central PA naturally means that I was exposed to a lot of paintball. It's the perfect blend of redneck and preppy culture, because rednecks like shooting things and only preppy kids can afford good equipment. Usually when I played paintball I just ended up with several dozen welts and a smudge on my visor, but there was one time, one glorious time, when I single handedly won a game.
We had already been playing for a few hours, playing in the woods in the back yard of a kid named Jeremy. There were seven of us, and for the current round we split into new teams. Unlike previous rounds, however, these teams were clearly stacked against mine.
The other kids had the four most athletic, best equipped and experienced paintballers on their team, and my team consisted of my sister and the youngest kid in the group, and me; 'target practice'. This is no direct statement against my sister Zie and Bennet; for back yard games like this they were decent in a paint fight. It just happened that the other team had a varsity basketball player, two pro paintballers, and the rich kid with a paintball SNIPER of all things.
Oh, and we were doing a fort-assault style game. Guess who was in the fort? Not us dopes.
So the round kicked off and our team were able to fight our way up to a row of bushes on the south side of the fort, which was basically just a bunch of half-rotted cargo pallets stacked in a circle with chicken wire. The fort team was suppressing out position behind a fallen tree pretty heavily, but couldn't advance without going out in the open. Stalemate.
After a few more minutes of feeling eachother's defenses, I was fed up. I gave my two spare tubes of ammo to Zie and Bennet, along with my spare tank. That left me with a third of a tank of O2 and half a hopper of paintballs.
"Keep firing but listen." I said, patting them both.
"You keep their attention and keep pressure on them. I'm going to move to flank them."
Before Zie or Bennet could protest, I began retreat back along our path of advance before beginning to skirt a wide loop around the perimeter of the woods. I crawled, climbed and crouched, moving as silently as I could. There were several times where, had the entrenched team bothered to look to the right, I would have been easily spotted.
As it was, they were too blood thirsty and complacent in their skill and defenses to think the dweebs on the assault team would do anything other than peck away fruitlessly at the fort. They knew it was just a matter of time, and so did I.
At one point, I stumbled and snapped a large, dry branch. I was sure they would hear, so I hit the deck and half buried myself in a leaf pile. The rhythm of exchanging fire didn't miss a beat. Slowly, quietly, I got back up. After about three minutes of sneaking behind trees and bushes in the jagged forest hills, I was finally concealed behind a tall skinny tree on the north side of the fort. I peeked out from behind it, and I could see them all hunched over behind the cargo palletts like a row of ducks, totally exposed. Not one of them was scanning the forest. They were laser focused, all eyes straight in the opposite direction from me.
My personal paintball gun was an underpowered semi-auto piece of shit. I couldn't get any closer without compromising my retreat vector, but this was one of the longest shots I had ever made. Unlike the rich kid with the air sniper, my shots tended to arc and english terribly, so I had to get this right the first time. I steadied my paintball gun againt the edge of the tree trunk and propped it up on a splayed thumb; a trick I had learned shooting targets up at my Pap's deer camp.
I tried to slow my breathing, and squinted through the grime on my mask. As usual, the visor on the black paintball mask had been the first thing shot that day, and my accuracy had been suffering ever since. So, I did the unthinkable and lifted it up off of my face, tilting it back onto the crown of my head. This was it. I chose my targets; the two pro players. There was no way I would be able to take them all out; my gun was too slow. Two would have to do.
I gauged my firing arc and squeezed the trigger.
PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT
The panic was sublime. The second they heard my shots they all ducked, but that actually put them straight into the path of my erratic firing. My two targets were down, and as I pulled my mask down and ran straight back from my tree, I heard the paint sniper send a shot straight over my shoulder.
PATAFF
But I was gone, into the bushes. Bennet and Zie were flawless; the second they heard the panic and shouting they charged from their cover and unleashed a relentless barrage of shots. Bennet got hit, but it was too late by that point. The match was done. The dweebs had not only won; we had embarasses the fuck out of the cool kids.
And it was in that moment that I realized I had a legitimate knack for tactics and stealth.
So share! There are no standards for what can and can't go here. School accomplishments, hard work, even video game stories; what's important is that it made YOU feel impressive, and I you should hold on to that.
It'd be nice if these were shared in the form of stories, but it's not necessary. I have one from around...must have been 16ish.
...
Growing up in central PA naturally means that I was exposed to a lot of paintball. It's the perfect blend of redneck and preppy culture, because rednecks like shooting things and only preppy kids can afford good equipment. Usually when I played paintball I just ended up with several dozen welts and a smudge on my visor, but there was one time, one glorious time, when I single handedly won a game.
We had already been playing for a few hours, playing in the woods in the back yard of a kid named Jeremy. There were seven of us, and for the current round we split into new teams. Unlike previous rounds, however, these teams were clearly stacked against mine.
The other kids had the four most athletic, best equipped and experienced paintballers on their team, and my team consisted of my sister and the youngest kid in the group, and me; 'target practice'. This is no direct statement against my sister Zie and Bennet; for back yard games like this they were decent in a paint fight. It just happened that the other team had a varsity basketball player, two pro paintballers, and the rich kid with a paintball SNIPER of all things.
Oh, and we were doing a fort-assault style game. Guess who was in the fort? Not us dopes.
So the round kicked off and our team were able to fight our way up to a row of bushes on the south side of the fort, which was basically just a bunch of half-rotted cargo pallets stacked in a circle with chicken wire. The fort team was suppressing out position behind a fallen tree pretty heavily, but couldn't advance without going out in the open. Stalemate.
After a few more minutes of feeling eachother's defenses, I was fed up. I gave my two spare tubes of ammo to Zie and Bennet, along with my spare tank. That left me with a third of a tank of O2 and half a hopper of paintballs.
"Keep firing but listen." I said, patting them both.
"You keep their attention and keep pressure on them. I'm going to move to flank them."
Before Zie or Bennet could protest, I began retreat back along our path of advance before beginning to skirt a wide loop around the perimeter of the woods. I crawled, climbed and crouched, moving as silently as I could. There were several times where, had the entrenched team bothered to look to the right, I would have been easily spotted.
As it was, they were too blood thirsty and complacent in their skill and defenses to think the dweebs on the assault team would do anything other than peck away fruitlessly at the fort. They knew it was just a matter of time, and so did I.
At one point, I stumbled and snapped a large, dry branch. I was sure they would hear, so I hit the deck and half buried myself in a leaf pile. The rhythm of exchanging fire didn't miss a beat. Slowly, quietly, I got back up. After about three minutes of sneaking behind trees and bushes in the jagged forest hills, I was finally concealed behind a tall skinny tree on the north side of the fort. I peeked out from behind it, and I could see them all hunched over behind the cargo palletts like a row of ducks, totally exposed. Not one of them was scanning the forest. They were laser focused, all eyes straight in the opposite direction from me.
My personal paintball gun was an underpowered semi-auto piece of shit. I couldn't get any closer without compromising my retreat vector, but this was one of the longest shots I had ever made. Unlike the rich kid with the air sniper, my shots tended to arc and english terribly, so I had to get this right the first time. I steadied my paintball gun againt the edge of the tree trunk and propped it up on a splayed thumb; a trick I had learned shooting targets up at my Pap's deer camp.
I tried to slow my breathing, and squinted through the grime on my mask. As usual, the visor on the black paintball mask had been the first thing shot that day, and my accuracy had been suffering ever since. So, I did the unthinkable and lifted it up off of my face, tilting it back onto the crown of my head. This was it. I chose my targets; the two pro players. There was no way I would be able to take them all out; my gun was too slow. Two would have to do.
I gauged my firing arc and squeezed the trigger.
PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT
The panic was sublime. The second they heard my shots they all ducked, but that actually put them straight into the path of my erratic firing. My two targets were down, and as I pulled my mask down and ran straight back from my tree, I heard the paint sniper send a shot straight over my shoulder.
PATAFF
But I was gone, into the bushes. Bennet and Zie were flawless; the second they heard the panic and shouting they charged from their cover and unleashed a relentless barrage of shots. Bennet got hit, but it was too late by that point. The match was done. The dweebs had not only won; we had embarasses the fuck out of the cool kids.
And it was in that moment that I realized I had a legitimate knack for tactics and stealth.
And, we dream of home I dream of life out of here Their dreams are small My dreams don't know fear I got my heart full of hope I will change everything No matter what I'm told How impossible it seems We did it before And we'll do it again We're indestructible Even when we're tired And we've been here before Just you and I
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued