whats more impressive about this is that the guy is riding a fixie while doing all of this. this means that, as you can see where the pedals are spinning wildly, that there is no freewheel mechanism. Most bikes have a freewheel so you can avoid all the problems fixies have. so long as the bike is in motion, the pedals are too. there are NO brakes too. They’re as purely mechanical as you can get.
HOWEVER. the peloton he’s riding behind are all on on geared bikes, which means to keep pace this mad cunt has been putting out some serious, serious wattage. At their pace, I would estimate he’s going at least 12-17mph before starting his superman move. In order to assume that position, he has to unclip his shoes from his pedals at high speeds. high level cyclists will physically clip their shoes to their pedals to maximize their power output as a lot of power goes unused when the leg has it’s upswing.
so not only is he keeping pace with guys who are having an infinitely easier time than he is, his sigma-aero maneuver is balls to the wall style incredible. he then, when in position, has shifted his center of gravity from his core/crotch, to his chest AND his crotch, showcasing an incredible amount of bicep and tricep stability AND balls and he does this in one fluid motion. amazing. this man has a) done this before and; b) has incredible bike control. mark cavendish eat your heart out.
he then closes it all off with the riskiest maneuver of them all: shifting back to his original position and clipping back in. you’ll notice when there’s 10 seconds left, when he shifts from laying down to sitting up, he actually shifts the majority of his body weight on the handle bars (which is why the bike starts to wobble), sits up, and waits patiently with his legs almost atop his wheel, to clip back into his pedals while theyre flying around at 20000rpm. That is masterful. This guy has some of the best bike handling I’ve ever seen and I’ve watched just about every clip of Peter Sagan that exists. Amazing.
His feet aren’t “almost atop his wheel,” they’re pressed against it. The pedals are spinning too fast for him to catch so he needs to slow down, which means dragging his feet on the tire, because
I had a biology teacher that told us this story about an octopus at an aquarium in Australia. The staff were concerned because their population of crustaceans kept disappearing. No bodies or anything. So they checked the video feed to find out what’s up.
Across from the the crustacean tank was a small octopus tank. This little fucker squeezed out of a tiny hole at the top of his tank, walk across the hall, and get into the crustacean tank. He would then hunt and eat. After he was done, he crawled back out and get back in his tank
Here’s the kicker: security guards patrolled the area. The staff realized that the octopus had memorized the security’s routine. It would escape and be back between the guards’ round.
My friend who worked at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska had a similar story. Rare fish were disappearing, they suspected theft, and so set up a camera. An octopus was unlocking the top of its tank, walking across the suspended walkway, unlocking the other tank, eating his fill, re-locking the other tank, then re-locking its own tank.
I can’t remember what zoo this happened at, but there was another octopus somewhere who was unscrewing a water valve in the room where its tank was located and routinely flooding the place. The staffers had no idea what it was until they filmed the octopus caught in the act.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN!! But, sir, it has already released itself!
My dad worked in a lab and one of the rooms had a tank with an octopus in it. If they didn’t go play with the octopus he got bored and would climb out of his tank and steal the paperwork off the desks, and drag stuff into his tank to let the scientists know he was upset with them.
Octopi: aquatic cats.
There’s also been a case of one hunting sharks in the same tank. Octopi are the assholes of the sea.
I love them so much.
You CAN Miette?! You put her in the jar like the peanut butter?! Oh! OH! Davy Jones’ Locker for the researcher! Davy Jones’ Locker for One Thousand Years!
alright so. yknow how scar is always saying like, alchemists go against god, alchemists are unnatural, alchemists are terrible people? my take is that he’s right.
the actual origin of alchemy in fma is kind of left vague for most of the series, and is presented in such a way that many viewers/readers could definitely come away thinking it’s just always existed, like magic in various fantasy worlds or sympathy in the kingkiller chronicle, etc.
we knew the eastern/western sage (hohenheim lol) was the one who taught xing and amestris about alchemy, but we didnt know if he was the only one who knew about it or he was just one person from a country with that knowledge. but it’s clarified later on that, no, hohenheim was the first person to ever learn alchemy, and he was the one who taught it to everyone else. and he learned it from the dwarf in the flask
the dwarf in the flask’s origins are never really explained; we just know that it was the result of an experiment by a certain xerxian scientist. but for my money, i don’t think he created it. i think he summoned it.
the dwarf in the flask is too borderline omniscient, too ancient to be something newly created by man, and the way it & truth act toward each other supports this. truth treats the dwarf in the flask like a familiar nuisance, opposite but complementary forces - whereas truth is completely neutral to the point of cruelty, the dwarf in the flask is chaotic.
i think one of truth’s jobs over the millenia has been to contain the dwarf in the flask’s chaos, and i don’t think this is the first time it’s escaped. “i’m not going back,” it tells truth, just as i’m sure it’s said hundreds of times before. which fits perfectly with the theme of circles in fma. everything is cyclical, everything has happened before and will happen again. truth banishes the dwarf in the flask, it worms its way back up to humanity, truth banishes it, and the cycle continues.
if we are assuming the dwarf in the flask is some kind of otherworldy being, and it was the only one who possessed the knowledge of alchemy…it stands to reason that alchemy is not natural. it is too much power for anyone to wield, and that is the POINT. the dwarf in the flask taught hohenheim knowing he would teach others, and that those who should not have power would seek it.
it’s not a common solution to a common need like the recurrence of specific farming methods or shared tenants of religion in cultures around the world, it is a bridge between magic and science that was impossible for humans to learn on their own because it should not exist. (further evidence for this is that no one besides amestris and xing have alchemy because hohenheim did not go there! he did not teach them so they do not have it! it is not a naturally known thing.)
roy said himself, “alchemists are terrible creatures,” and we’re meant to disagree because ed and al are alchemists and they’re obviously good people. but if you think about every other alchemist, they ARE terrible. some alchemists, mainly those who sought alchemy as children, started with innocent motives - to learn a new skill, to save the world, to make their mother smile. but absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter how good a person you are. ed and al didn’t seek great power for evil, they just wanted to see their mother. but even with this noble motive, they committed a crime against nature, and they lost everything
it’s not just that alchemy is a corrupting force, either - it also attracts a certain kind of person. people will talk about how winry/whoever should have been one, but i disagree. an alchemist isn’t just a person who performs alchemy - anyone can learn it, but there’s only a select type of person who chooses that path, and it’s always somebody seeking power. roy sought power to change the world, and it led him down the path of mass murder. alex sought power to continue his family’s strength and artistry, and it led him the same way. shou tucker and kimblee and so many other villains used alchemy for evil, the military specifically recruited alchemists for murder. izumi wanted to be strong, and the elrics wanted to be clever, and eventually, they lost everything.
even mei; alkahestry is a little more grey since it’s generally used for healing rather than fighting, but fighting is 90% of what she does. she’s a sweet little girl, but her clan is dying, so she took on the burden of alkahestry to protect them, and found herself in the middle of a war.
edward and alphonse are good people, but they are terrible alchemists. and i don’t mean that in the way it sounds - they’re FANTASTIC at DOING alchemy. they’re prodigies in every way possible. but an alchemist, as a person and a symbol, is someone who desires power more than they value truth. and edward was the first one to ever give it up.
-esque means homaging or resembling the style of, or reminiscent of even if unintentionally; you can apply the -esque suffix without making any overt assertions about creative intent or your own interpretive lens
-core is about pursuing motif as theme; it’s designating the [thing] attached to the suffix as a core (lol) unifying conceptual or stylistic element, rather than a mere attribute. it implies lifestyle choices, maybe an attached subculture–to be thing-core an item must either be produced as part of or usable within a pursuit of the theme
-stuck is weirder because it derives from a subculture to begin with, but generally it’s more like [other thing] ‘in the mode of’ [thing]. thingstuck implies the application of a templateto another template to create the fusion child thereof; appropriately has its roots in fanfic aus
holy shit that is all exactly right! i’d like to further suggest:
-punk indicates an ideological counterculture rebellion against current cultural norms in the direction of [thing], such as steampunk and solarpunk. kafkapunk would be something like defiantly embracing the option of turning into a hideous giant bug in lieu of participating in late stage capitalism. which, frankly, is a big mood.
