#Orig 2005 hp character.

[tragedienes-a]

SO you wanna tell us that you started role playing with 11? And where? MySpace? Or did you write letters with classmates? I don't buy it.

this is a… weirdly confrontational message lol, but alright, here’s my comic book villain origin story. if you’re so curious, i started roleplaying on myspace in 2005. you must be young because people used to roleplay on xanga, livejournal, insanejournal, AIM, friendster, forum boards like gaia online, and even youtube weirdly enough, it didn’t start on tumblr. i was heavily bullied in middle school and i had severe social anxiety so i spent a lot of time on myspace and just the internet in general to connect with others; one day i was looking at the ‘most popular users’ or ‘users online right now’, i don’t remember the exact thing it was, but i saw a user named ‘padma patil’ and my little 11 year old brain was like wait, from harry potter? i clicked on the profile and caught on pretty quickly to what was going on and decided to try it, it looked like a lot of fun. it’s funny now but at the time i didn’t understand you were writing with other people, so i created a bunch of profiles like hermione and ron, etc, and would switch back and forth between their accounts writing stuff like ‘i love you hermione’ on her profile comments and then switched to hermione’s to write ‘oh i love you too ron’. that only lasted about a few days before i realized you were supposed to be writing with other people lol and i entered the myspace ‘rpc’ as it were as with a hermione granger profile. 

now, back then, there was a difference between what was called ‘one-liners’ and ‘novella’ roleplayers. i started out with one-liners, which i assume is similar to bandom rp or twitter rp, where you just talk as if you are the character, i.e.: hey harry, potions class sure was hard today! *hermione smiles* and your display names would be like ‘Jalen *Sister to Harry *Single and Looking *Adopting Maia*. when i say i started roleplaying in 2005, i don’t mean i was paragraph writing back then, i was just talking pretty much ooc as another character to connect with people since i was so shy in real life, but it was still roleplaying. i didn’t start ‘novella’ writing (as in multiple paragraphs, what i do now and mostly everyone does now) until i was about thirteen or so, when i switched from harry potter rp to the outsiders rp where i had a two-bit mathews sister oc and found friends that did novella writing. i wanted to be like them so i started para rp, and i was frankly pretty horrible at it. i didn’t really know the difference between your and you’re, i would switch between them willy nilly depending on which one i used in the last line lmao, until i was fifteen or so. i also took year long breaks because of school or i wasn’t interested in it anymore. then myspace was bought by another company and turned into a music-based site so us myspace roleplayers kinda floundered in the wind until sites like roleplayer.me or sitemodel.net (which doesn’t exist anymore but was the exact same thing really as the former) popped up. i roleplayed on roleplayer.me until about, early 2015 when i moved to cleveland and finally switched to tumblr rp—i was actually a bit standoffish about tumblr rp at first, i thought all the rpg promos in actors’ tags were really annoying, but i saw a zombie rpg that interested me when looking through devon bostick’s tag one day and finally made the switch. so that’s why i’m still here today.

i don’t need you to “buy it” or believe me, but i don’t really understand why you’d necessarily think i was lying about something as silly and arbitrary as when i started roleplaying lmao. at the very least, it shows you read my rules/about page, so good on you.

[chriscope]

Suzuki is, in some ways, the motorcycling equivalent of Steve Urkel, the comic-relief character of 90s sitcom “Family Matters” fame – seemingly doomed to always get big schemes wrong, but failing in a way that is strangely endearing. In being so seemingly incapable of grasping the current motorcycling scene Suzuki is almost charming. Almost.

BE AMAZING LIKE THESE PEOPLE Become a Supporter of The Motorcycle Obsession

Last week, the good and the great of Suzuki’s motorcycling side – including company president Toshihiro Suzuki – gathered at Intermot for the unveiling of the its new retro-styled Katana. Standing near the stage before the company’s presentation, I found myself surrounded by a fleet of dark-suited Japanese dudes – executives. They were quietly bouncing with excitement and pride at the thing occupying center stage, hidden by a silken sort of cover.

2019 Suzuki Katana

This unveiling, you could tell, was a Very Big Deal for them. This, you imagined them thinking, was the moment when the company would finally throw itself onto the right path. After more than a decade of twisting in the wind, growing evermore irrelevant to the motorcycling world, this would be the bike to reignite the imaginations and open the wallets of young European and Western riders. This was it. The glory years were set to return as soon as the cover was whipped away.

Or, well, that was what was supposed to happen.

READ MORE: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Suzuki?

After several minutes of perennial pitch-man Steve Parrish attempting to be enthusiastic about other utterly unexciting and wholly un-new models, then a stilted speech from Toshihiro Suzuki-san himself, a video aired of a blindfolded samurai slicing wildly in the air. Interspersed with his staccato movements were images of the new Katana being ridden with enthusiasm, the soundtrack building in intensity all the while. The video concluded with the blindfolded samurai now turning toward the camera, raising his sword menacingly, and taking one final deathblow swipe just as the music reached maximum THUMPTHUMPTHUMP-ness. At that exact moment, little air jets located on or near the bike hissed and…

2019 Suzuki Katana

Nothing happened. The sheet did not dramatically fly off as it was clearly supposed to. Instead, a woman in a skimpy Suzuki outfit quickly ran up, smiled uncomfortably, and pulled the sheet away.

It’s hard to miss the unintended analogy here: a blind symbol of Japan’s past dances about, huffs, puffs… and whiffs.

The original Katana was launched in 1981 and was at the time the fastest production bike made. It was also stable and comfortable, thereby helping to usher in the sport touring genre. Designed in Germany, the bike was a hit in Europe.

2019 Suzuki Katana

Almost four decades later, Suzuki is completely out of new ideas and has fallen into an awkward cycle of doing the same thing over and over and over and wondering why people aren’t responding as positively as they used to. So, it brought in Italian designer Rodolfo Frascoli and asked him to create a new Katana that looks like an old Katana.

KEEP READING: Let’s Tell Suzuki What to Do

The new bike is effectively a GSX-S1000F in retro styling, using the same frame, more or less the same tech, and the same old detuned GSX-R1000 K5 engine (from 2005). The bike’s four-cylinder powerplant puts out 150 hp at peak (10,000 rpm), which certainly isn’t disappointing but is a far cry from claiming the fastest bike in production title (which, I think now goes to the roughly 240hp Kawasaki H2).

2019 Suzuki Katana

LED lighting is the only real advance from the GSX-S1000F that was released three years ago, with the Katana also promising fully-adjustable front forks, a rear shock adjustable for rebound damping and spring preload, Brembo front brakes, and Bosch ABS. A three-mode traction control system can be turned off.

Along with retro styling, the Katana gets a one-piece seat that looks more accommodating of passengers than the padded DVD case found on the back of the GSX-S1000F. Could this mean the Katana will be the sport tourer the GSX-S1000F is kind of supposed to be? Don’t know. I can’t find any info in Suzuki’s media release that suggests the rear subframe has been bolstered to actually be able to support luggage.

If you live in the UK and want to be underwhelmed in person, Suzuki will be displaying the new Katana at Motorcycle Live next month. It is expected to arrive in UK dealerships in spring.

MORE IMAGES

2019 Suzuki Katana

2019 Suzuki Katana

Maybe we're missing something here, but Suzuki's new Katana is kind of underwhelming. Suzuki is, in some ways, the motorcycling equivalent of Steve Urkel, the comic-relief character of 90s sitcom "Family Matters" fame – seemingly doomed to always get big schemes wrong, but failing in a way that is strangely endearing.