#his ass is actually negative its inverted

[cyancherub]

No Ass Aki

PANCAKE ASS!AKI

#thotbox #moth <3 #his ass is actually negative its inverted #akirot #HI I LOVE U

[incarnateirony]

Do you know if the CW feels any impact from the audience of their shows in countries where they're not a channel? For example in Brazil there's no CW, but some of their shows are on the Warner Channel as well as stuff from other networks.

This one is a little more complicated, I'll start at "nyes".

Here's the thing: at the end of the day, the CW is an empty vessel. It has less than 400 employees, and technically even qualifies as a "small business" resultingly. It is an LLC, meaning it has no stocks, and can not be held accountable on the stock market and the executives there have a series of protections designed to keep them from taking personal hits.

Boycotting the CW is a method to plink the armor of its much larger parents. At the end of the day, the CW--shitty as its ethics, choices and influences are--are mostly beholden to its parent companies.

Does anyone remember when I told people, the second that Wayward was cancelled, that CBS was responsible, despite Wayward being a WB IP? I explicitly mentioned Moonves, and quoted his methodology on properties, ratings, streaming and more? Then dipshits like You Know Who tried to claim they knew better, and that I was crazy/stupid, and then like a month later one of the wayward women said at a M&G that the contractual breakdown was from CBS, and This Guy Named Moonves, and then there was radio silence and the You Know Whos emitted crickets, buried the conversation, and pretended it never happened?

That's because these things are related. They all influence each other, as per my last ask (x).

At the end of the day, the things that happened on, say, Supernatural are you actually being pissed at the WB. You can see the WB's historically failing Studio Responsibility Index on things like LGBT representation here at the GLAAD website. (x)

Just like a lot of the supreme BS attempted-but-massively-failing woke content tends to spew out of CBS trying to appeal to The Young Gays while segregating The Gay Stuff off their prime network that is historically way behind the others. They have no idea how to actually make or handle that content, but slap pride flags and a few Hashtag Fact phrases on content and plug it up the CW's ass to market it to you with more rainbows and a big impressive tally list of gay characters, that the You Know Whos of fandom insist make it a great representation channel, and bury the conversation that most of those are one-off or very minor characters, dead, or worse. They're there to hit a target that's a good talking point. Nothing else. They put a gay in the background of a poster somewhere so That Counts(tm) and look how progressive they are, make sure to attend his funeral next episode.

This may all seem like a huge aside to the initial ask but it's necessary framework to present, in association with the above-linked previous ask, on why holding the CW accountable is important. Because at the end of the day, be it the Nadria Tucker issues with WB/DC and their firing her for racist/sexist reasons; or the erasure of gays on Supernatural to the point there's clearly an order to their related syndication networks where they won't even air 15.09 or 15.18 again much less the finale; or the bullshit attempts at being woke on Walker where they think making ICE prisoners a talking point to launch a white man cop's story as relatable to an ICE officer's struggles is good marketing; to things outside of it, like--as posted by POLOL member Rebarn in the server,

-- these are people actually being mad at choices made by the CBS and WB. The CW is just a vessel to deliver it with minimal accountability and a PR mask people eat up like the gay candy they're trying to sell you even if it's just sugar free beaver anus flavoring.

But because of the size of these giant merged companies, like--trying to tackle WB head on for example is a fools' errand unless everyone pulled their heads out of their asses and ended this "I DO WHAT I WANT" personality and started heavily networking with say, DC fandoms and adjacent to do substantial damage to their franchises far larger. But, again, deferring to the above linked previous ask, if you knock out the CW as a content vehicle, even if it's smaller, you suddenly dent 6, 7, 8, 9 zeroes out of WB/CBS profits because you CAN knock down the CW, and change how they have to peddle their product.

To round full circle to your ask: just because the CW isn't in your country doesn't mean it does no good to boycott the content. Because the profit still goes to the IP holders (CBS, WB), and it's still part of the joint statement, as well as lowers the digital franchiseability of the products they're trying to resell on the market, internationally.

For example you know how internationally Netflix shows a lot of "Netflix originals" that are very obviously not originals, but are instead shows from other sources? That's part of The Rights Game. Initially CW and Netflix had a brokered deal of bulk packaging for a very large, very pretty price to them that helped bankroll them for years. This is also why CBS started shoveling absolute fodder content down the CW's throat that could run on just about negative ratings -- again, I point to the Moonves interview I cited as implication to why Wayward was bumped off the line -- so CBS could run away with the digital profits 100% licensing things in dozens or hundreds of companies. But CBS threw a goddamn hissyfit about merchandising rights when Netflix was like hey if we're gonna source all these shitty shows can we get like 10% of the merch value and CBS threw themselves on the mcdonalds playplace floor kicking and screaming, and then CW lost its legendary netflix deal which made them have to start peddling their content individually.

So if you cut off viewership of this content internationally, its franchiseability tanks, and CW continues to lose a huge part of its bankrolling value both with digital and to its parent companies using it as a vehicle to deliver content to shove into digital venues. The lack of the Netflix deal is why CBS is also wandering around like a pauper to platforms trying to find a home for its content--like convincing WB to host Walker on HBO Max, where I promise it's not going to do well. Most of its audience is beyond streaming age, and I promise no young 20 something is gonna open HBO Max and be like YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT TO WATCH, THIS YEEHAW COP REBOOT WITH JARED PADALECKI SPITTING IN A POT AND PULLING UP HIS PANTS. They're gonna fuckin' turn on Game of Thrones or something. Netflix, hulu, amazon don't fuckin' want it because they see that on the horizon. They're not gonna pay the money CBS wants for it. CBS All Access is for old people and they're too noncommittally fake woke just enough to piss off the Trumpers (points back to point about CBS content/representation way up there). So CBS DOESN'T EVEN WANT IT ON ITS OWN STREAMING PLATFORM.

Walker's housing arrangement on HBO Max is actually an early symptom of CW death throes, and CBS trying to figure out what the hell it's going to do once the CW goes under. It burned its netflix bridge, and soon won't have CW to try to float/sell/farm its content. Streaming apps don't want their content anymore. Their content underperforms.

So yes, absolutely boycott these products internationally. It adds to the weight of what's going on and continues to make CW less and less valuable on the front, continues to damage the actual IP holder parent companies and take their products to their knees, and continues to expediate the decline of it all in one network of fuckery. The same way the CW was a strength for its parents by webbing between them is now a way to drag them into a collective undertow and force bad business results on them all around, essentially inverting its value, expediting the rate at which they decide the CW is a money sink, and making them watch the 0s fly out of their bank account in a way that--say--trying to tackle the WB directly wouldn't accomplish.

CW no longer owns the rights to SPN, hence deleting its YT content. WB does. But WB has been feeling the crunch enough that brand new unopened S14 complete season blurays with specials are being sold under 10 dollars at walmart with 2$ off other movie tickets on the front and still not going off the shelves. That's them even trying to recover costs on releasing them to begin with. The WB tried to put out a mega 15 season uber collectors set giveaway enter by RT and got like, 300 RTs total. They need traction, they're not getting sales, and we're seeing the active results.

Continue to put heat on products that came by way of the CW as a result of their communal meddling being bad for business in any way possible, even after CW is no longer airing it and once the money is going straight into the IP holder parent company pockets. Not only are you then making The Correct People(tm) hurt, you're further devaluing the CW itself and accelerating its heat death which STILL will end up massively dinging the WB/CBS for reasons explained above in ways that kicking the titans in the shins itself wouldn't accomplish.

Hopefully that clarifies.

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, Vigilantes 18, Replies Part 2

1) “OH WAIT, THAT WASN’T EVEN MAXIMUM SPEED? THERE’S A EVEN HIGHER GEAR? THAT’S LUDICROUS! LUDICROUS I SAY! YOU’RE A MADMAN FRO TRYING TO GO THAT FAST TENSEI! NO MAN SHOULD EVER BE THAT FAST!”-

(Tensei starts running fast enough to invert his colours) Koichi: My God! He’s gone negative!

2) “Oh, time for koichi to shine then. The tails won’t be a problem for him, he can just get to the door and grab Makoto, after that what the catbus does is not their problem, its just going to fall to its death anyway.”-For once, the hero finds themselves in a crisis where they don’t have to save the cat all well as the civilian lives in danger.

3) ‘HOLY FUCK FORGET SHE REALIZING THEY ARE SIMILAR, SHE JUST SAW HIS FUCKING FACE’- Hence the reason why koichi should invest in a hero costume that won’t blow away and expose his identity due to wind drag. He just went fast enough on his own to catch up to a bus speeding up to past 50mph, boy’s gotta start looking for gear that lets him glide at maximum speed with minimal resistance, and also protects him from the watchful eyes of the law to boot.

4) “NOW PLEASE TELL ME THEY MANAGED TO JUMP IN TIME, OTHERWISE THIS IS ABOUT TO TURN INTO A PRETTY DEPRESSING CHAPTER.”- Well, not just yet, but thankfully, Koichi’s gotten better at incorporating vertical thinking into his movements- no reason he can’t use the bus as a slide ramp to gain enough air to reach Tensei after the fall, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s unlocked the time-honoured tradition of Video Game double jump/hovering here to boot.

5) “OH MY GOD TENSEI WHAT IS THAT POSE, OH GOD IT LOOKS FUCKING HYSTERICAL NO I CAN’T KEEP LOOKING AT THIS PANEL, NEXT ONE PLEASE”-

Tensei: Ultimate Move! Compressed Naruto Running!!

6) “YOU’RE NOT PLANNING ON CATCHING THEM MID-AIR, ARE YOU?”- Frankly, an uncomfortable amount of this stunt rests in Koichi’s hands, rather than the trained hero Tensei. It’s up to Koichi to judge the angle and timing of his leap to not only intercept with Tensei’s own arc, but go fast enough to ensure he has enough momentum to reach in the first place. Tensei can only go forwards at his current leap if he wants to reach the other side of the divide, so he can’t slow down to better reach them on his own, and since he can’t see them once they’ve plunged off the edge, he can only jump on his own and trust that they’ll make it close enough to him for him to grab them. 

Granted, it was an emergency situation, but it underscores how Tensei’s own skills are very specific and focused upon one particular area- Moving forwards very, very fast. He compensates well thanks to coordinating his skills with his sidekicks, but on his own, he’s not as versatile a hero as Iida thinks he is, unless he has good backup.

7) “WE KNOW HE CAN DO IT, HE ALREADY CAUGHT POP LIKE THAT ONCE. GRANTED, HE HAD A WHOLE-ASS BUILDING TO BUILD UP SPEED, BUT HE IMPROVED SINCE, HE CAN REACH TENSEI”- The similarities to the time he rescued pop are not accidental. Back then, he was trying to ‘fly’ for the very first time, and ended up chocking mid-way through- though pop’s foot had something to do with it as well. This time, he’s had more experience and confidence through his training with knuckle and numerous life and death situations. This time, he’s more determined ‘not’ to fall no matter what, so when it looks like he’s failed, with the weight of a life that’s not his own in his hands, Koichi just wills himself to keep going, not allowing the limitations he believed he had to hold himself back from saving Makoto, and in that brief instant, he manages to fly for real. 

The description of him wanting to fly might have been metaphorical for his desire to be a hero at the time, but Koichi’s actual ability being one that allows him to soar above everybody makes sense, when before, when he allowed others to talk himself down, it was seen as something that forced him to go lower than everybody to be effective. Only when he ignores the opinions of others and believes in himself can Koichi become a true hero, far more powerful and useful than anybody took him to be from a surface glance.

8) “YOU CAN DO IT, YOU’RE ALMSOT THERE

JUST STRETCH YOUR ARM A BIT MORE, DO LIKE THAT ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE YOU THAT HAD THE LONG LEGS”

Koichi: My arms... won’t reach! But… I Have legs!!!

“DID KOICHI JUST ACTIVATED HIS QUIRK USING THE AIR AS AN REFERENCE POINT INSTEAD OF A SOLID SURFACE

AND HE USED ONLY THREE CONTACT POINTS INSTEAD OF TWO

HE FLEW”- Yep. The whole time his quirk has actually been way more versatile and OP than anybody knew, especially Koichi himself. I’d even go so far as to say it’s a worthy contender for a quirk that could be added to OFA- heck, in some respects it even surpasses OFA in regards to movement and agility. Sure, All Might can go from standing still to Bullet-train speeds, but he requires explosively violent movements to propel himself around like that, and if he’s not touching solid ground his ariel movements are extremely linear, easy to predict his trajectory and landing point, if hard to follow regardless for the sheer speeds he reaches. 

Koichi, meanwhile, has far more precise control over how far he’s going, not to mention the ability to turn on a dime and reverse whenever he wants, as well as stop and ‘cling’ to objects like buildings and such in defiance of gravity. He can’t go ‘quite’ as fast as All might, but his more gentler movements allow him a far greater variety of movement options, and let him traverse the environment in any way he wants- not to mention his ability to outright fly now as well, letting him go full 3d in any direction. Hell, given how he propelled himself here, I’d even say this could work as a movement option underwater, or even using the surface of water itself to glide upon. Plus, since he doesn’t even need to use a solid surface to activate his quirk, nor even the ‘3-point activation’ like he believed, his power is actually far more versatile and useful in a pinch that he fully understands yet. And that’s not to mention to combat benefits as well that come from unlocking this explosive ‘force of will acceleration’ level. After all, even though he mainly used them for flight stabilisation, Tony Stark’s hand thrusters counted as viable weapons.

If Koichi can unleash that level of force from his hands, he could seriously amp up his dmage output and finally start being able to fight on his own. Granted, the problem with attacking with that much force is that he’s likely to blast himself off the opponent as much as he is to hurt them from the pressure, but there are workarounds to that.

Hell, going beyond that, if Koichi doesn’t need to generate the acceleration with 3 limbs, then there’s no guarantee that his repulsive force is similarly limited to his hands and feet as well- he might be able to create a ‘shield’ of force around himself to soften blows and minimise damage. All Told, Koichi’s potential as a hero was always at least on par with a 5% full-cowling Izuku at a baseline level, but because of his mom and everybody tell teaching him how to repress himself to fit in he limited his quirks usage and handicapped himself, all whilst consoling himself that he never really had it in him. But now that he’s actually doing heroic deeds and saving lives, those handicaps are coming off one by one, because heroes don’t define themselves by their limits, but by their deeds- if they say they’ll save someone in need, they will, no matter what limits they have to go beyond in order to achieve the impossible.

@thelreads​

#bnha vigilantes #bnha #my hero academia #thelreads #chapter replies #vigilantes 18

[allykat4416]

Meme Trip 2k19, Pt. 1

Dates: May 16 and 17th

Park: Kings Island in Mason, Ohio 

I didn’t make trip reports for my second meme-trip in August of 2018. At the time, I thought I was doing myself a favor. Now, I incredibly regret not sharing that stuff straight away. I missed the chance to talk about my first visits to two parks that have very unique spots in my life. The first of those, obviously, is Six Flags New England, a park I’d been dying to go to because of one certain Superman. {And I did leave Massachusetts as a Super Stan.} The other of these parks is Kings Island.

Kings Island and I have a long, storied history filled with intense emotions. Like Carowinds, a lot of my plans to visit KI fell dead along the way— Dad didn’t win the tickets, I didn’t like my classmates enough to justify the trip, I wasn’t able to make the drive up, etc. It’s a park that means a lot to my dad, and he took my mom there when she came to meet his family for the first time. He was one of the first riders of Beast, there for her birthday as a gift for his own.

I cried in 2018 because I didn’t want it to be my home park when I thought I would be going to Northern Kentucky University. I used to crusade hard as hell for KI to never get a giga. The park gave me the largest heebie-jeebies when I visited in August of 2018. I don’t think I feel emotions as intensely for theme parks as some of my comrades, but Kings Island is one of those parks that almost makes me believe I can.

It was a rainy Thursday after a day of nothing but car-riding [and driving for Casie, bless her soul] when we pulled up into the parking lot. We saw that infamous “HELL IS REAL” billboard about an hour out, and I found it quite ironic. For a park that’s been so full of death and negative energy, it was fitting that that’s where we saw the iconic sign.

When we got into the park, both of the Not-Evil Wooden Coasters [NEWC, as it is] were down. We didn’t know why regarding Beast, but we did find out later that Mystic was struggling from electrical issues that day. We liked to think they were conspiring to make the 2020 giga not suck and help everyone else with half a soul say “fuck off” to Steve. Enemy of the enemy is my friend and whatnot.

Instead, we decided to get a snake in our boot since we were already in Rivertown. Diamondback has always been a solid ride—I maintain that B&M hypers are like ordering chicken tenders at a new restaurant because it’s very, very hard to mess them up and even 232 is fun when the trims don’t hit—but she was running really well that day. Diamondback ended up being our final ride of the day in the pouring rain. Rain at 80 mph doesn’t feel very great, but it was a laugh riot and worth it. I keep meaning to get a front-row ride on this, but the back row is such a tantalizing experience that I can’t quite pull myself away from it.

As far as B&M hypers go (and I’m not counting Fury), Diamondback is now my favorite. At any other park, it would probably be my second favorite in the overall roster, but Snek is actually my third at KI because of the aforementioned NEWCs. I wish we were able to get a ride in the following day, but Coasterstock had her queues slammed. Oh well.

After that, we headed over to see our favorite little anxiety boy, Flight of Fear. I don’t get the hate these rides receive. I find both this and his twin at KD to be fine, upstanding rides that are always worth at least one lap when I go. It’s one of those rare rides where stopping on the MCBR actually works in its favor. We were also assigned to the front row, which gives me the biggest uwus. We came up with a really cool character concept if Orion/Polaris sucks in the queue for FOF, and even if the ride is underwhelming, we’re happy Felix has a vaguely-powerful ally. There’s not a whole lot else about FOF to say- the transitions were nice and whippy, the little alien as you pull into the exit station is adorable, and I like the enclosure of it. I hope FOF is around for a nice long while.

(Obligatory RIP Firehawk comment here as well. Thanks for being a good flyer. Piss off, Nighthawk.)

Since it was the only wooden coaster open, it’s time to talk about Racer. I don’t want to talk about Racer. But sadly, I have to talk about Racer. Everything about this ride feels wrong- the aerial view of the turnarounds, the tunnels on the brake runs, the way almost literally everyone else universally adores this ride… Racer holds a lot of energy, and all of it is cryptic. It makes me wish I’d ridden Thunder Road, because Rebel Yell does not have this sense of permanent creeping dread. Ride-wise, Racer is inoffensive. But the vibe that ride gives me isn’t good. At all. We rode twice, red and blue. We raced Deb, Kat, and Brandon while in red and lost. We were the only people on red train, but we did not feel alone in the worst possible way. We won when we rode blue to peek at construction. The cheering in the tunnels had us fucked up.

I hate that, if there are any personifications that have a chance of being real, it’s most likely Abraham and Thaddeus. I’ve never been so wrong about a coaster’s personification before I rode it in my life.

We needed an exorcism after that ride on blue train, so we went to Banshee next. Again, while not my favorite invert, I don’t understand why so many people seem to hate this ride. I think a B&M invert complements their park nicely, and that slow roll at the end is nothing short of fire-hot. It’s also tons of fun to flip off Outpost 5 while you’re on it. It’s what Brynn would want us to do. Plus, missing the pre-drop never fails to give me butterflies! I do wish they had played the audio scream before we dropped though.

We got to ride this with one of our Insta friends, Wild, and we were both really happy to see her. She’s a great kid, and Banshee is a fun ride. We love our pastel goth icon, and we love our Junkrat Stan of a little sister. We also befriended a Banshee ride operator, and their group chat is called “Banshee’s Hot Topic” and that makes me want to cry in a good way.

Bat is awful in the sense that it breaks my heart. Yes, Tanner as a character is very sad (especially so in the Project Shooting Star universe), but it always hammers home how badly I miss Big Bad Wolf. What I’d give for one last ride on the Rhine with my lupine friend… Bat’s in a beautiful area, but that queue makes me feel like I’m at Camp Crystal Lake and Jason’s about to have some fun. Also, can we all say how much we hate seeing SOB’s old station? Because I hate that! A lot!!

Again. Like Racer, Bat as a ride is objectively inoffensive. But there’s so much energy around it, and I’m not sure if it’s residual garbage leftover from Son, the gunpowder factory, and the safari or what. Bat feels so detached from the rest of the park, but I don’t think there’s a more perfect place than KI for a ride that feels this full of sorrow.

Vortex was a one-and-done for us after some sinfully delicious blue ice cream, but I do admit it was better in the rain. The drop actually provided some decent air, and while the transitions are pretty janky, it’s an Arrow from the 80s. You can’t go into it expecting something butter smooth like B&M. That isn’t fair. It’s still not my favorite Arrow looper, and it wasn’t even my favorite one of this trip, but I do think I might have judged it a tad too harshly before. Like FOF, there isn’t much else to say about this ride.

The people we met also made the day phenomenal! Wild, Brandon, Kat, Debra…this one’s for you. I raise my Raisin’ Cane’s tea to ya’ll, stay funky and ride on.

But one day at that cryptic-ass park is never enough, shit’s like Hotel California. Being gluttons for punishment, we returned to Cursed Island.

Kings Island is so different in bright sunshine. It almost feels like a normal amusement park. Almost. We went for the first couple of hours, since Coasterstock people were there and it was a Friday on top of that. It was also hot as a ghost pepper outside. I’m still really sad we missed Tristin and Plummy!! Maybe next time. We did, however, finally get to meet Stephanie in real-life, and she’s pretty chill. We did the dumbest shit for our picture. However, I’m 99% sure the ride operator said “Enjoy your ride on Son of Beast!” when she was with us and I heavily dislike that.

We’d done basically everything else that we had wanted to the day prior. We already had the credits for Backlot, Invertigo, and Adventure Express, and none of those really warranted waiting in the lines. Vortex and Bat had been ridden already this visit. We have mad love for Banshee, FOF, and Diamondback, but those waits were gnarly. We didn’t want to even look at Racer again, let alone ride it. So now, we went to the NEWCs.  

Since Five is dead, we rode Beast three times that morning. She was over her alcoholic shitfit, I suppose, and was running very well. Brandon called Beast a good noodle. From a ride standpoint, you can make the case that until that final helix, Beast doesn’t do very much. I personally like how it’s a bit more speed-oriented, but I understand why some others might not. Like Boulder Dash, I think a lot of the ride experience comes from the scenery. I also think knowing Beast’s history makes it the marvel it is. We got some pretty good air on the first hill after the main drop, and that helix is always so damn scary to me. Top 10 coaster moment for sure.

Beast has a TON of energy to it, but unlike Racer or Bat, it isn’t malicious. You may not like Beast, but you WILL respect Beast, you feel? And that energy is why I think Beast will always be my favorite in the park, even over the giga (and especially so if those blueprints are real.) Beast isn’t just a coaster. It’s an experience, and one that makes the park so worth visiting. My only regret is we didn’t get one of those fantastic night-rides.

If those blueprints are real, it’s time to talk about what will most likely still be my second favorite coaster at KI come 2020. Since Thunderhead was my first major coaster, I always have held a soft spot for GCI. And while I do still believe Thunderhead is better, boy howdy do I love Mystic Timbers. It’s a shitshow of a name for a kickass ride. Lines only allowed us to ride once, but we were lucky enough to be assigned to row one. Mystic is definitely better towards the front, I believe. You feel better air there, and while I still don’t think MyTi’s got ejector, it’s stronger floater in the front. (The truck out front played Survivor and I had to scream “WOW I LOVE SIX FLAGS”, so maybe she was just pissy over that.)

I understand why people were disappointed with the shed. Holograms can’t hold a candle when you’re expecting a Verbolten-style drop track. But the shed is cute for what it is, and it’s better than being stacked in the sunshine. We saw the snake scene this time, which is probably my favorite since Tatzelwurm doesn’t even exist in PSS universe anymore. Killer Cat was the best shed scene, but snakes will do.

Also, fun fact about Mystic. When we visited in October, I kept saying how badly I wanted to hear Bonnie Tyler in the shed. We hear it. Friday, I jokingly went “oh booooy I hope I hear my girl Bonnie again!” Lo and behold, we hit the shed and it plays Total Eclipse of the Heart. I lost my goddamn mind. Mystic Timbers said 80s retro. Hate that name, but man oh man, do I love that ride. We love our GCIs with big tiddys and bad personalities.

We rode the train to snag some pictures of Mystic and Snake Friend, but then we dipped and hit Taco Bell as one does. It was better that way. Kings Island had told us all it wanted to for now, and it let us take our time to mosey to the next park and really digest what we’d seen. We also had the opportunity to meet back up with Bee and spend some time with her since we left!

All in all, KI is such a cursed park. I know saying that makes it sound like I really dislike KI, but that’s not the case. I adore Kings Island BECAUSE it’s so cryptic. Their lineup is solid, and even though we can’t truly judge the giga before it opens, I don’t think it’s going to elevate them any but it won’t necessarily bring the park down. There’s so, so much in Mason to unpack, especially in the months to come. I can’t wait to see them again.

#trip reports #cursed island makes me do the big uwu

[fit-as-fxck]

HRV and the Autonomic Nervous System

(pls, I just wanna ramble)

Lets talk Heart Rate Variability and the Autonomic nervous system. Nerd alert- this is something I heckin’ love. What we’re looking for here is fine scale variability across physiologic systems. Those little movements between rest are measured when you do a variability analysis. What you’re looking at is information about the autonomic nervous system- how much is rest and digest (parasympathetic) and how much is stress (sympathetic). Besides this, there is something that is called RER (respiratory exchange ratio), using the same algorithm (measuring HRV etc) to measure how the body uses (metabolizes) carbs and fat during training which is really interesting but super difficult to explain. This checks for something called metabolic flexibility using this fine scale variability. The more fine scale variability you have the more parasympathetic your system is, the more you are under rest and digest. As you lose that fine scale variability your risk for heart problems rises. Maybe someone on paper seems that they should be seeing certain results or in a certain state however, if something is off, checking this fine scale variability you may find out that this person is losing the capacity to use carbs for fuel or transition to fats for fuel during certain specific style training etc and you can adjust from there. This is all advanced science though, I don’t see the average person in a gym particularly caring about this but the high level athlete might. The average person doesn’t have an understanding of the short term or long term implications of this. BUT, I think everyone can agree that we all need the ability to manage or even flourish under stress. If you don’t have the ability to be parasympathetic at rest, your body’s ability to buffer stress is going to be impacted. Later I’m going to link this information to where I currently am in my training (which is royally fucked amen).

Let’s look at an example of a client on paper who seems great. HRV is really high, resting heart rate is really low. But how did she feel? Like shit. She could barely get off the couch, couldn’t train, couldn’t even work. By grabbing that snapshot where she probably went though a massive amount of sympathetic stress and at some point her body went from being very sympathetic but her ability to do work kind of gets worse. You don’t feel very good. Sleeping less, training harder and drinking more pre-workout to fix it is the wrong approach. You can get by on it for a period of months, even years, but your system is fucked. Wham, out of no where you become super parasympathetic almost overnight. If you think about the body as a survival based organism, it’s saying “Hey you’ve had all this stress and were trying to shut you down slowly over time. We’re cutting your performance but you keep doing all these things to override it. I’m gonna flip the light switch and make you so parasympathetic you’re not even gonna make it to the gym.” Reaching this point is extremely difficult because your body doesn’t have any sympathetic area to go to. It makes sense in the case of your body being survival based. When you get here we are shutting you down. To recover out of that massive hole takes time, months or years to even get back to baseline.

Now, let’s take someone at rest and make them more sympathetic. Let’s make them do 5x5 deadlifts at the gym and in that instance you WANT the ability to become more sympathetic. You want the ability to use more carbohydrates as a fuel source to create more ATP fast enough to fuel that exercise. On the flip side, when you’re done with that you want the ability to down-regulate (take a stressor and absorb it), to become more parasympathetic. When you’re more parasympathetic we see the body’s ability to use fat is greater. The tricky part is what are the cross over periods. Can we look at someones HVR to see how someones using those fuels or see what those ends of the spectrum are? In general what we see is that someone who is more on the sympathetic side has a much harder time reaching their body composition goals. But let’s go back to heart rate for a minute. If we make your heart more aerobically efficient, an adaptation to that will be a lower resting heart rate. If we’re trying to make someone more aerobically efficient we can use heart rate variability to see if someone became more parasympathetic overtime especially if a taper or deload is involved (pull all the other training stresses away). Resting heart rate can give you a pretty good idea of where you’re at. Again, we’re looking at how high and how low you can go.

Something to note:

Let’s talk about a study done on Monster energy drink. For the sake of research, the caffeine dose was based on body size. The HRV was measured etc what they saw was not too much of a change in HRV, resting heart rate was changed and performance was enhanced slightly with a fair amount of variability. People who were at both ends of the spectrum were analyzed so massive data came out and a conclusion could not be reached very well. BUT the interesting thing about caffeine used in the study like this is sometimes people went very parasympathetic before going sympathetic. Coffee was an entirely different story though!! Variabilities included: caffeine tolerance, absorption rates, and personal neuro-associations with it. Some people drink a cup before they go do something fun, sometimes before lifting. So for someone with a notion about it already, that plays a part on the effect they receive. Take someone who slams 2 cups a day before heavy ass deadlifts, well, their neuro associations was more on the sympathetic side (heavier dose, smell of coffee triggering to get amped up to lift). So this data gets hella messy quite quickly. I just thought that was super neat to mention. Don’t mind my word vomit. 

Let’s take HRV and resting heart rate to see how someone should be training. Maybe we take look at it and decide someone shouldn’t be doing anymore sympathetic type training because their system cant recover from it as much. In this way, training can be manipulated to reach different goals- lets say we manipulate it in a way and then they come back and we test their aerobic capacity etc and find out that by adjusting it they essentially saw a better HRV over the long term. Finding that balance between wanting more of that capacity because its indirectly supporting something VS moving away from the thing you’re trying to get better at, is where its at. There are ways in which HVR can be used to manipulate training to reach an end goal that may leave the person better off.

Perception of Lifestyle stressors: (finally, this is what I wanted to get to)

-Take someone whose training should be the most stressful thing in their life right now, their lifestyle stressors should be relatively low or stable. But what we’re finding is it’s actually inverted. Different things dictate this: resting heart rate and also perception. If we have someone training super hard, we pull back the training for a period then what should happen is their HVR improves because we’ve essentially pulled back the biggest stressor in their life. If it doesn’t improve, then something happened that week or there’s some other baseline stress that’s going on. This can be evaluated by getting some context information. What else is going on in your life? Is your life outside the gym feeling like a goddamn dumpster fire?? It’s like filling a water bucket and multiple things can effect the water level if you have multiple things going in and going out. Here’s an example: An athlete whose HRV dropped but he just started his taper and it should be going up over time. Keeps dropping for 4 days. So what else is going on? because the graph isn’t making sense. Well, turns out his wife is getting pregnant, they lost one of their coaches at their gym, and he’s thinking of selling his house, all within the last 4 days. Yeah thats a lot of stress and that makes perfect sense. Eventually things get back on track, his HRV starts going back up but if we didn’t have that context marker we would assume it was his training or body that was going wrong. In a lot of cases we have unconscious stressors too, things we don’t even notice. 

-Most stressors are on an individual basis and most of it is based on perception of it. How much of this is based on how we perceive something as a negative or a positive? Take this study for example: Maids at a large hotel we’re split into two groups. First group was told their work was enough activity to satisfy the daily recommendation and was going to help their weightloss. The second group wasn’t told anything but they all moved the same amount. Well, the first group actually lost weight over a series of weeks because they thought what they were doing was effective for weight loss. Take another study: People were given a set amount of pain in their finger and then they changed the visual input to the finger. They had them look through binoculars either the normal way or the opposite way - so the finger looked bigger or smaller. When the finger looked bigger they reported more pain. What’s even crazier is they had a measurement of the local inflammation of the finger itself and in the case where they reported more pain, they actually had more local inflammation. So the body literally listened to the perceptions of the brain. Let’s take another study done on the milkshake: The first group was told the milkshake was super “blah”, the second group was told the milkshake was super thick and fancy and calorie dense with tons of fat. Of course the perception of what they reported as tasting was different and even their hormonal changes were actually different even though it was the same thing. So how much do we actually understand on this? On another note: how much do we know about EMF (electromagnetic fields)? But what are we going to do? Walk around in a bubble? So when you take people’s control of this away and amplify the psychological profile of it, what the heck do u think? But anyways.

Nutrition:

Take someone who is very sympathetic and has a very low HVR. If they’re already very sympathetic what we probably want to do is counteract some of that cortisol and introduce them to more calories and carbs. IN theory the hormone that is opposite of cortisol that we can control is probably insulin. Are we purposely bumping up insulin a little? Yes, but we’re trying to buffer some of the stress in their life. Other interventions are breathing practices, meditation and relaxing more. Take someone who is very active in the gym and ask them what they do to relax and they CANT say go to the gym. The vast majority of the time they’re like idk. The fact is, you need a movement to handle stress and you need a non-movement to handle stress.  But if you’re trying to handle stress by adding more stress all the time? Prob not gonna go well. Breathing is probably the biggest intervention to acutely change HRV (more sympathetic to more parasympathetic). Even the eyes can be involed. There is a condition called tree blindness. A person cant tell the difference between trees anymore. In Japan they talk about forest bathing aka walking in the woods and there’s even more interesting information about looking at fractal patterns. Distance is even involved, if you’re staring at your screen all day those little muscles that control the eye get tight because of lack of use. This muscle should be really really fast. When people get really stressed the fine scale muscles of the eye become less and that makes sense because if someone runs into the room with a knife then we’re going to immediately look at that person and we’re not going to try to look at anything else. We’re going to become hyper vigilant because that thing is the biggest threat to us. But some people’s baseline stress is so high that they walk into a room and their eyes don’t even move around much at all, or their head moves with their eyes all the time. This is a tell-tell sign that they’re on the sympathetic side. 

I mentioned cortisol above but someone who is sympathetic with low HVR and tries to measure they cortisol, well, it may not always be accurate based on the measurement. But by measuring their HVR and resting heart rate every day they get to see a better pattern. Lets take that person and tell them to meditate every day for 15 minutes. They report that they don’t “feel” any different after 4 days, but lets pull their data and we see that their resting heart rate is getting better and their HRV is going up a little bit. So, that gives them feedback and they get a little bit of a win, a little bit of a dopamine hit to keep moving in the right direction. This can be applied using sleep too. If they have a massive sleep dept then they’re probably gonna need to sleep more for a bunch of nights in a row before they really feel any different. But if they can see their HRV data then they can see that they’re moving in the right direction by seeing a physiologic marker of their system to reinforce those small changes. You’re probably not gonna feel better right away but you can see that its beneficial.

Supplemental Interventions:

Higher calories seem to help most of all because it takes your body out of that state of constant stress. Personally, I fucked up regarding this. I didn’t eat regularly (or enough) and lost my appetite completely for the past 4 weeks further driving my body into this unwanted state. I’m building calories back up again to practice recovering my body back to normal but I’ll get into this later. A few other things are adaptogens (Ashwagana, maca) and reishi mushrooms. Removing caffeine completely is a huge part for me right down. I’m almost completely off caffeine (decaf coffee for me >:[ thx). Currently, I am supplementing with Ashwaganda, Magnesium, An adrenal reset, B vitamins, C vitamins for immune support, Maca root as another adaptogen/stress, Iron, Vitamin D, Fish oil is a given. It sounds like a lot but I shot my system into the ground over the past 2 years due to physical and intense psycho-social stressors (which I wont get into) and never let myself recover from it. Yeah, I fucked up. And then I got super sick and stopped being able to even eat. I carry constant fatigue, my arms feel tired all the time. Another part is how much light exposure do you see (not behind sunglasses or a windshield) to regulate your circadian rhythm? That is an anchor we need. Being tired during the day and then being wide awake when you try to go to bed is absolutely a marker of having a screwed up rhythm. Taking a walk outside and looking up at the trees, no matter how simple that sounds, makes a difference. Cold exposure: I’ll talk more about this when I talk about a recent book but applying cold therapy and thermogenic heat conditioning is a way to apply an acute stressor to combat chronic stress (releasing cortisol and adrenal etc in order to respond correctly to the psycho-social stressors). Dr Rhonda Patrick has amazing information on this. This may not be the best tactic to apply for the average person on the daily (I'm not talking turning the water to cold at the end of a shower to activate the acute stressor, I'm talking more than that). The problem we get into is that fitness is a culture of extremes and sometimes extremes like this don’t need to be applied. Some things we can get a lot of adaptation from with minimal effort. There is a time and place for everything and as much as I love hot yoga, right now I have to stick to normal yoga until my system can take it on. 

The average person has decoupled movement from stress. They’re sitting at their desk all day, their boss yells at them and what do they do? They type faster but they don’t have much movement at all under a huge amount of stress without any outlet. If someone is buffering that with high intensity exercise they’re already doing the one thing that is trying to get them more coupled to that stressor. How do we fix those better? I tried and ran myself into the ground. Of course the stress I was under was paired with an intense lack of sleep, getting sick, literally not eating for over 24 hours every day, getting hardly any calories in, not resting and over caffeinated to cover up the weaknesses I was experiencing but eventually it all stopped working for me. Okay, I'm almost done.

HRV is essentially the overall cost of all the stress on the autonomic nervous system. And it’s in charge of a lot of stuff in the body. But it’s not a single predictor of performance. Most people have a very low awareness of their life stressors. Oftentimes, they don’t realize how much of a factor it’s playing until they see the data in front of them. 

Personally:

So this is where I am right now. I’m having to learn to be super gentle with myself. I’m tracking several things along with how I feel every single day and sleep etc. 

supplementing

sleeping

resting

meditation and breathing exercises 

light yoga and mobility

walking and sunlight exposure 

managing psycho-social stressors 

eating enough calories

tapered myself off of caffeine (its almost non existent for me right now, thank you adrenals for shutting down on me, you motherfucker)

learning to relax 

#personal #rambles #march 2019

[krakenator]

CHAPTER 6 aka “a͙̳͖̤͙̍̌̒̅ͪ̕ǎ̤̤̀̊ͥͬa̲̪̱̱ͧ̎ͤ̈́a̬̘̾̍̍̈́̉a̍̎ͩ̏ͬͯA̤̺̲̟̭̻̰ͨ͆ͥ͂ͮ͒͌A̻̯͉͈̹̘̺A̗͎̓̿ͪͥ͂ͦA͛̋͗̊̆҉̟̦͚͖̼͍Ä̩͖͖̽̒̄A̯̪̩̼͔͇ͮ̽ͫ͗̿̄ͫA̫͔-”

SPOILERS are sprinkled around extremely liberally for The Property of Hate

Masterpost here

Considering the state of Hero’s coat I do NOT want to see what direct skin contact of doubt consumption looks like

Tbh I see this kind of high-step run pose now and I’m just like ‘yep that’s modmad’s work’. I think its shown up a few times in her Duck comics and thats why?? RGB channeling his inner Gladstone

*robotic voice* “oh no. fears.”

All the frames on this page are… actually starting to drip up. That’s an effect I’ve only attributed to Negative so far. Interesting?

YEAH they really are breaking apart and evaporating

Yo remember when RGB was saying that Doubts will eat you the entire fuck up and I posited that he’s seen it happen before? Who wants to bet seeing Hero halfway to that fate summoned up that there Grief

RGB wrecked counter = 3

He’s drowning in grief har har

BUT ALSO, the burns covering his body absolutely hurt but he doesn’t start screaming until the Grief starts literally drowning him. Hero getting a tear on his wrist later gives him a lil zap like static electricity, so... RGB is feeling the simultaneous sensations of THIRD DEGREE BURNS and ELECTROCUTION here

the only other time he’s even close to screaming in this much pain is getting ironed out by Tailor, but then, the iron isn’t literally killing him (this time) when doing that much as she might wish

I WANT TO SEE MY SPECIAL BOY

HERE COMES A VERY SPECIAL BOY

H̢̧͍̩̩̮͔̫̽͂̓̉̚Ë̸̱͓͇̟̠́̽̈́͂͆͊̎͘͠ͅ'̧͓͙͍̱͓̗̤̀̍̅͒̉̊͊S̨͙͖̞̫̠̥̝͕̊̎̄͂̚ͅ H̴̡̡̛͈͔͚̤̮̑̆̐̀̿́́͒E̪͎͖̣̭̓͒̓̈̎́̓͗̑Ŕ̪̹̳̭̮͖̼̌͑̚͟͜͞E̝̣̮͎̣̭̭̐̈̒͊́̃͢͠ͅͅ

HE’S HERE AND HE BRINGS ALONG THE IMPOSSIBLE BLUE ROSE MOTIF. OF COURSE HE DOES

WOOOO GET ‘EM NEGGY

The sheer shift in tone is just done so well. Negative’s silence. The scritchy-scratchy panels. Negative hooking a Fear head onto his cane to make a scythe. The distinct sense that the Fears are now Afraid (the hunters become the hunted).The static-y ‘distortion bar’ visuals overlaying the pages (best seen here tbh)

Oh goddamnit he wields fear as a weapon

HAHAHA he yeets a fear and then DRAGS IT BACK BY HIS CANE THAT’S AMAZING WHAT A SAVAGE 

Rose vines(?) straight up grow and spawn around him

HEY WAIT A MINUTE. THOSE VINES AND ROSES. THEY’RE THE PAGE BUTTONS

Negatron was with us the entire time

Negative @Grief: what’re you gonna do with that big fist? Gonna hit me? Better make it count. Better make it hurt. Better kill me in one shot

On one hand, Negative could be genuinely so powerful that the Grief cuts its losses. On the other hand, Negative might hold no sorrow for the monolith to react and be drawn to. Negative is a visual inversion of RGB after all, it stands to reason everything is flipped. Cowardly, Afraid, and Regretful RGB inverts to a Stone Cold Boss-Ass Bitch who don’t Fear No Thing

So there’s a lot going on page 108 when Neggy reverts back

The heavily sketched panels diminish as RGB turns back on

His speech text actually changes. It goes yellow and blocky. An almost Assok kind of texture actually. And that yellow looks the same shade as the rose vines? Can Negative TALK?

Meanwhile, the roses themselves shatter as RGB falls over into “PLEASE STAND BY, WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES”

Oh jesus it MOVES. Do you… just become more Doubts when you’re consumed like that?! Yikes. Good thing Hero doesn’t keep it on

The entirety of RGB is on standby, not just his clothes. Even his cane’s glitched out

Im sorry but his antenna… they’re just fucking dead on the ground. Totally boneless

Cool auditory indication of RGB being truly in between states right now

Hero honestly just wants to get him back for yanking her about by the neck earlier but has to settle for dragging him by the bowtie herself instead of moving him by fingers-snapping karma

if you’re a person who likes sock puppets boy is there a treat for you next time on tpoh

#tpoh #tpoh time with gill #the property of hate

[theochelpsquad]

Lina Schlitz (Shingeki no Kyojin OC)

HEYAAAAAAAA its me again i made a really big mess of the old char sheet because i did it at like 3am so i decided i would redo it !! thanks again <333 

H: it’s fine! For the second time (bc Mod Eris is lazy!!!!) I’ll be the only reviewer. Under the cut, because this one is long!

Name: Lina Schlitz - リナシュリッツ

H: Shlitz is actually a name that has mid-German origins--nothing to fix here, it’s right on the SnK map!

Nicknames: Querida - pet in portuguese, given by her grandma. Idiot - given by some of her squad members. (i dont really have any other ideas for nicknames plz alp)

H: Most nicknames I’ve had or given come from inside jokes or shared experiences--a joke about her age when she started training or an alias from a battle, maybe?

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Birthday: 18/11/833 - scorpio (so she would be in the …. 102nd squad i think ? as she would be 17 by the time eren, mikasa, armin & the squad were 15… .although i kinda wanna make her older . .. should i?)

H: I honestly like making my characters older--older characters have more extensive backstories and more room for creativity. However, it’s your choice in the end! (And I’m pretty sure if she was 17 while the trio were 15, she’d be in the 102nd.)

Faceclaim: michiko malandro (from michiko and hatchin)

(i think this one is the most accurate - hairstyle , face, everything, n expression)

(without the chains tho… and the survey corps uniform… and shorter hair)

H: She’s so pretty cri

-personality:

positives;

brave - lina is not afraid to put herself in danger or do risky things, so she can get things done better than most people

decisive - she can throw her humanity out of the window to make decisions

honest - she doesn’t really care what people think of her, so she will often say what she thinks to your face

direct - as above, lina gets straight to the point 

observant - she often notices the little details, from environment to facial expressions or body language

realistic - she knows that she might die any day, and she lives life to the fullest

simple - relating to her trait of being realistic, lina views life in a simple way - you either die or you don’t, and if you don’t, then you better make the most of it

kind - despite not showing it much, lina is actually quite kind due to her grandparents and parents raising her to be a good lil child

neutrals;

competitive - she loves a good competition and will never back down from a challenge

sarcastic - lina uses sarcasm to make people laugh and hide her true feelings

unsentimental - as mentioned in her trait description of decisive, she knows that her 

comrades, family, and friends can die any day and they have a high chance of it too, so lina detaches herself from them as much as possible

tough - lina can power through a lot of situations, as she contains her emotions on the inside

calculating - she can observe a situation and make a decision off of it, but also she is good at making plans

strong-willed - lina will not give up. ever. no way hozay

perfectionist - everything must be perfect - including her statistics, battle technique, horse, and mostly everything under the sun. however most things aren’t perfect which annoys her to no end

negative;

cocky - lina can often overestimate herself, in battle and in casual situations, which leads to her putting herself and her comrades in danger

brittle - her emotions are easily hurt, although she doesn’t show it

manipulative - lina will lead people on if it benefits her

compulsive - she often acts off of instincts and emotions alone, tying in with being cocky

disrespectful - adding in to lina’s trait of being honest, she often disrespects her superiors, elders, and anyone on the planet if she feels like it - which doesn’t make her that likeable 

hostile - being hostile to keep people at a distance means that lina doesn’t have many friends

inconsiderate - as long as it is good enough for lina, it is good enough for you so you better not complain got it got it ok

messy - lina’s bed is often unmade and her appearance is disheveled

mannerless - tying in with being disrespectful, she often licks her plates, chews with her mouth open, talks while speaking, disrespects her superiors, ect

neurotic - despite not showing it, lina often has anxiety attacks about her past and friends, and what will happen to her (her symptoms include nausea, fear of dying, a racing heart, and heightened senses - including trembling and sweating, also staring off into space)

possessive - lina is possessive of her possessions, her friends, herself, and mostly everything that she views belongs to her

procrastinator - she often pushes things like apologising, doing training, and eating, off until the last minute

sly - tying in with lina’s trait of being manipulative, she can worm her way into someones mind quite easily and manipulate them for her own gain

uncooperative - she is terrible at teamwork, believing that everyone is ‘cramping her style’ and slowing her down, so she often refuses to work in a team and has to be forced - unless she is the leader, and then she loves to boss everyone around

sadistic - lina enjoys cutting the limbs off of titans before she kills them, however only ones that remind her of the one that killed her grandma and family - the others she has a strange interest in

cold - she often pushes people away, rejects friendship offers, and isolates herself

stubborn - once lina has decided she is doing something, there is no changing her mind

hot-tempered - she often flies off of the handle when provoked or annoyed, or if she is in a bad mood

H: So, from skimming, I’m summarizing her personality as appearing outwardly cold (though she doesn’t always mean to be) but actually being a lot different and less intense when you get to know her.

-appearance:

Hair Colour: brown-black

Hair Length/Style: mid-back length, extremely straight - tied in a high ponytail (so it is around the length of kristas/sashas)

Eye Colour: nut brown (very dark brown) with bits of lighter brown

Skin Colour: bronze-coloured

H; Seeing as the SnKverse is mostly white and light-skinned, how does her race affect her life? I’m guessing that once the Titans arrive, people don’t care what the heck you look like if you’re the one saving their asses, but maybe when she was a child?

Body build: mesomorph, a mix of hourglass and inverted triangle - lean

H: As she continues her training, she’ll begin losing weight and her hourglass figure will be less dramatic. If you want to write/draw her according to the timeline of her training, that’s a good thing to keep in mind!

Demeanor: relaxed - arms crossed, leaning on walls, slouched in chairs, head tilted back, head resting on table

Ethnicity: Brazilian/Portuguese/German/English (where is the story set in ??? nobody knows)

H: I’m not certain myself, but I made a post on where the story most likely takes place. Brazil isn’t on the map, though. You could make her Brazilian ancestry from her grandparents or great-grandparents who immigrated north. Then again, the map isn’t canon, so who cares?

Height: 5'3

Weight: 8 stone 6

H: She’s slightly underweight, but enough that’s it’s realistic for a malnourished environment.

Scars: One down her right arm, due to when a titan had her in its mouth during an expedition and, although one of her teammates killed it, it’s jaw fell onto her arm when it hit the ground and broke her arm.

-statistics:

Combat: 9/10

Hand to Hand Combat: 7/10

Agility: 4/10

Initiative: 8/10

Wits: 5/10

Teamwork: 4/10

3D Maneuvering Gear: 6/10

Offense: 9/10

Defense: 4/10

Cockiness: 10/10

Titan Kills: 

Solo: 11

In team: 21 (is this ok ?? i assumed since she was 2 years older, p good at fighting, and in the scouting legion, that she would have a higher kill count than say, mikasa, even though she’s an ackerman, because mikasa is 2 years younger and hasn’t been on that many expeditions)

H: Sure! The 102nd would most likely have a pretty high kill count,seeing as a lot of battles happen after their training.

Grad Rank: 1st (ahh is this ok too? i thought since she was in the 102nd squad, and her family was in the military, that she could be 1st since there aren’t any y'know titan shifters or ackermans in her squad)

H: Also fine! The 104th was a special case--standards likely wouldn’t be as high in other training corps.

Grade: A

background:

lina’s ancestors moved with most of the world to germany inside the walls, the only safe place on the eartha lot of her family died on the way, only two survived along with a few other people - a wife and her husband, alanza and lucas santos - not much older than 18.

when they made it to the walls, they were given a small, one bedroom house inside wall maria, shinganshina district as they were one of the last people to arrive.

after a few years, they had a child together, and his name was to be victor. they taught their native language, portuguese told him to teach it to his future children to keep their country alive.

lucas decided to enroll in the military and joined the garrison to try and keep his family safe, but he was tragically killed when an abnormal titan flung themselves on top of the wall and ran along it, crushing the garrison underfoot.

it was eventually killed, with the help of one of the first elite teams and the scouting legion. lucas was one of the soldiers tragically killed in the attack and alanza was left to raise victor by herself.

when victor was a teenager, he too joined the military - scouting legion - despite his mothers wishes. he managed to survive, however, long enough for him to be promoted to team leader - and for his arm to be bitten off in a mission, not long after his promotion. he was discharged by the military and met a girl by the name of hanna.

it was love at first sight, and they married only a few months after they met - after all, they could die at any time. alanza was soon a grandmother to a child of the name sofia.

by this time, the schlitz/santos line had become quite legendary in the walls, due to their skill and unwavering determination to help mankind. this cycle of the generations was continued until it got to maria and dedrick - lina’s grandparents. their father, abe, had been brutally eaten alive by a titan. due to this they were both firmly against any of their children or grandchildren joining the military in fear of their safety, and so the cycle ended. that is, until lina was born from delmira and adelchi - maria and dedrick’s daughter and step-son.

as soon as abe saw her face he knew she would join the military despite anyones wishes. as lina grew up, abe’s prediction slowly came true - she idolized the military due to their unwavering bravery and optimism that humanity would win the war between them and titans.

she was often caught sneaking out of her house to watch the scouting legion coming home from missions, cheering them on despite the crowds nervous and dejected muttering. so it was no surprise when, on her 12th birthday, the first thing she asked for was to join the military. (that lil shmishirt)

she persisted until her grandparents were brought to her house the next day from their home in wall rose. they told her of all the dangers, and yet she still persisted. they finally agreed - but only because lina’s father said he would join with her.

as soon as the words came out of his mouth, a loud bang rang out that shook the floor and caused panicked screaming to be erupted from outside. lina’s family rushed through their front door, only for them to be met with a crowd of people sprinting past, yelling and screaming.

they pushed through the crowd and found themselves at the back of another crowd, all staring up at the wall. a giant titan, over 50 metres tall, was standing behind it - looking down at the people of shiganshina with a blank expression, its hand clutching the wall. steam came off of it, increasing the temperature of lina despite how far away it was.

her family was frozen, huddling together and clutching each others hands. maria - lina’s grandmother - was clutching the cross and figures of wall maria, rose, and sina attached to her necklace and praying.

the titan moved its foot back and kicked the gate, sending it splintering all over the town. titans waiting behind it were catapulted forwards, crushing citizens and soldiers along with the multiple boulders.

lina’s family turned and ran as fast as they could. despite being old, lina’s grandparents were fit and kept up with her family - delmira dragging lina by her hand.

they made it to the docks in wall maria just as the last boat was leaving. delmira, with lina in tow, immediately began to shove her way to the front to plead with the soldiers to let lina on board. they denied her request and delmira whispered something to lina. they hugged each other as long as possible before delmira broke away and disappeared into the crowd.

luckily, the guards were distracted by the giant horde of people trying to break through. lina ran up the docks, as far away from the crowd as possible, and found herself level with a boat - it looked full to the brim. lina looked to the next one and eyed it apprehensively. stepping back a few paces, she sprinted as fast as possible towards the ledge. pushing herself off of it. her hands reached out to the edge of the boat, but the side of the boat was slippery and her hands couldn’t get a grip in time.

lina scrabbled for a grip, her fingers of her left hand slowly slipping off as she began to fall, but before she could, her wrist was snatched up by a calloused hand.

she looked up to see a friend of her mothers, adelmo weber, holding onto her arm. he pulled her up and onto the boat, despite the outrage that burst from the lips of the citizens that there wasn’t any space left on the boat, and even though she was just a child, he should have not saved her.

lina looked back just in time to see the crowd of people frantically running away - towards wall rose - from a titan, nearly 10 metres tall, picking them up and eating them like insects. the manic crowd drew level with lina’s boat, and she made eye contact with her grandma - at the back, out of breath - as she was snatched up by the titan.

lina screamed loudly, screaming at her grandmother to fight, fight the titan and get to wall rose - but it was futile.

the titan bit maria in half and let her severed legs fall to the ground as lina finally reached the edge of the boat, stretching out her hand to her grandmothers half-eaten corpse and the rest of her family.

the crowd was surrounded by titans coming from both sides and they were all massacred.

lina slumped down to the floor of the boat, and cried until she could cry no more. she slept until they reached wall rose.

H; Holy crap, all of this when she was 12? Poor kid! She probably has a lot of left-over trauma and stress from that day: PTSD, anxiety, possibly some extreme paranoia and OCD-like tendencies to check over and over that everything is okay.

the arrival of the boats was not received well by the residents of wall rose. they immediately began to riot about food shortages, overpopulation and that the titans would be drawn to the bigger population of wall rose.

lina exited across the drawbridge with the swarm of people who was on her boat, and they were promptly greeted by being pushed back by the citizens of wall rose.

they said that the other boats were too full, and they would not have enough room for all of the people on lina’s boat. the people onboard rioted immediately, calling out where would they go, would you be so heartless as to send us back - until they were silenced by the garrison and military police separating the brawling crowds.

they told all the refugees to go to the town square, where the people of appropriate build and age would be enlisted to the military with no choice, while the rest would go to work in the fields.

lina was enlisted despite being only just 12, and so began the start of her journey.

H: Woah, that’s young, even for SnK! Was she the only recruit of her age? Was she the focus of unwanted attention because of it? I have a student one year younger than the rest of the class at school and he’s always being picked on by the teacher (who I hate but that’s another story).

-trivia:

knows portuguese and when she is angry she slips in and out of it (for example, you are todas as dicas i hate eu estou para te you) also when she is tired or distracted she does too (i quero sleep por how tempo até as lights) this is because although her first language is english/german, her family spoke mainly portuguese at their home

H: My parents’ first languages were French and Arabic, and they do this all the time too! Nothing really important, I just wanted to add that. :)

she has the loudest, most boisterous laugh ever - although nobody has ever properly heard it

lina snores so loud she often kept the rest of her dormies awake

biggest sweet tooth ever - even though she rarely gets to eat anything other than beef stew and rations

H: This might not have been intentional, but people who experience traumatic events as children usually end up keeping childlike qualities with them for a long amount of time. Having a sweet tooth or sleeping with toys is not unusual for someone who went through what she did.

she has a bit of a portuguese/brazilian accent, mixed with english/german

lina cuts her own hair

her name means the heroes river, or river of light

SUMMARY-

H: To be honest, this character’s pretty airtight! There’s not much you really need to change on this one. She’s believable but still interesting enough to be a main character. Overall, great job!!

#oc #ochelp #submission #ocreview #oc help #oc review

[regular-lord-reckoner]

More thoughts on this AFI situation

And this is just for myself personally, but I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday and had plenty of time driving to work to mull it over, but for myself I think I am going to take a step back in terms of being a fan 

I’m not saying I’m one of these people who’s gonna trash all my albums and burn all my posters and shit, but this situation, regardless of how you feel about it, is a bit of a clusterfuck 

And honestly, just from the stand point of a fan it’s not that huge of a sacrifice because in terms of actual, musical content lately I’ve been underwhelmed and much prefer their earlier work, I’ve gravitated in the past few years to other artists that I listen to a lot more. 

Regardless of how this situation goes down, they’re always going to have a special place in my heart, I can’t help that. I may look back on it and cringe, but I’m also not going to sit here and self-flagellate for having cared about something that was meaningful and helpful to me in the past and yeah, you bet your ass I’m gonna be goddamn disappointed and devastated if there turns out there’s validity to these accusations, absolutely, but it’ll still be necessary to withdraw my support because we can’t let that shit slide, even if it’s something we like or used to like 

That being said, I’m still not sold and as I mentioned before, I think there’s some confirmation bias happening here in which there’s already this established problematic element, but now people are doubling back to try to connect even more things to the situation that may or may not actually have anything to do with it and some of which are honestly reaches, although I do understand where they’re coming from and I’m not saying there’s no basis whatsoever, just that I think some people are trying a little too hard to really turn this into a full-blown thing instead of just focusing on the issue at hand which is already a handful within itself 

I really do sincerely hope Davey’s seeing some of this discourse and paying attention to the comments on Twitter and Instagram and will do the right thing going forward. Again, I’m not of the camp that thinks he’s using these symbols and imagery to be malicious and hateful and racist, but I could be mistaken it’s just not something I’ve seen in his behavior up until this point and perhaps that’s my own inability at recognizing problems and that’s something I’ll have to work on, but I have been trying to think back and honestly, I’m coming up short on this one. 

I do think that the ultimate goal of this clothing line was to honor/represent the occult, alchemy, and witchcraft as well as having a nod to his well-established feelings about religion being thrown in there, but the problem therein that I’ve discussed at great length is that these images and symbols are not untainted and especially right now, right in this moment of history, it’s just not a good idea to be dredging them back up and using them, even if he’s inverting certain symbols as if to say “I’m turning this on its head, I’m disrespecting its hateful intention” it’s still there and it’s got an ugly meaning attached to it now and should best be left untouched, I think. 

As I tried to point out to him on Instagram, it’s a mark of privilege to be able to play around with these symbols, regardless of the intent, because the fact of the matter is, they are capable of doing harm. I’m sure there have got to be other symbols, other imagery that doesn’t have these negative associations that could be used instead and that’s what I’m hoping for going forward although I have no plans whatsoever of supporting this business endeavor. And as for a silver lining, his track record with clothing lines is pretty dismal so if nothing else this one probably isn’t going to stand the test of time either and will be gone in a year or so, but even still, there needs to be accountability, there needs to be a direct addressing of these issues and it’d be nice if just...something was said or done directly rather than have a representative of the company come out with some vague ass post about how the intention was never to be affiliated with what it’s being accused of being affiliated with. Regardless, you can’t just say, “Oh, but that’s not what it’s about” and keep putting this shit out into the world and act like you’ve washed your hands of it, y’know?

So...yeah. Situation’s a clusterfuck. Whether or not it’s as bad as it’s being made out to seem, I don’t really know just yet and that may be me just hoping against hope that it’s not, but I do feel like I’ve tried to be objective here, I’ve tried to be somewhat fair, although I acknowledge that this may be one of those situations where there’s not really room for that.

And so ultimately, I am going to more so err on the side of caution and take a step back because this isn’t anything to be taken lightly, I do want to take shit with a grain of salt, I do want to keep my eyes open and I will remain skeptical in spite of where I’m standing because it’s not like it’s impossible. It’s not like these accusations are so far off the wall that they just don’t stick at all. I can see why people are drawing the conclusions they are and although again, I think it’s sort of an unfortunate culmination of problematic things, they are still problematic and they do still need to be addressed rather than swept under the rug and so I don’t want to do more harm than good by trying to assess both sides of the situation and ultimately that means I’m going to have to put my foot down to a certain degree 

And if this situation continues to progress, if shit just really starts stacking up and it becomes clearer what’s going on here and if shit is blowing in the opposite direction of where I’m standing then I’ll own up to that and try to act accordingly and cut ties because that’s the right thing to do. At this present moment, though, I’m not quite there and that’s honestly probably a failing on my part. I understand why this is a hard line in the sand for some and I don’t blame anyone for bailing out right now, but like I said, from a personal standpoint, I’m not there just yet because even if they are still problematic in their own right, there are explanations apart from, “Well, clearly they’re out and out Nazis, obviously”. 

#AFI #Davey Havok #EYOT #Despair Faction #A Fire Inside #long post #long-ish #actually kinda short for me #i am trying to do what i think is right here and i realize i'm probably still missing the mark #and in another day who knows i may be fully on board with the 'fuck these pieces of shit i don't want to hear it' train #because i get where that's coming from i get what they're saying #i could be wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong and just don't want to face up to that and that's shitty of me and i'll work on that #but right now my gut's telling me i'm where i need to be at this moment #it's important to be able to take a stand against this shit even if it's something we like/care about #and that's hard to do in any case #but especially with accusations as serious as these i just want to be certain before i fully take that plunge #and again that may be the completely wrong thing to do and if so i will try my best to get to that point then #right now i'm just not there though based off of what's in front of me