#enough with this low bmi nonsense

[phantomrose96]

Branding the Hero

U.A.’s class 1-A had seen more combat than all other hero classes in the nation. When they talked about these incidents among themselves, late at night in the common room before the lights shut off for the night, they tended to agree this was a good thing. They knew what heroing meant now. They knew what they had signed up for. It was a scarier world than they had seen on television, but it was one worth protecting.

The internships with Nighteye and Fatgum shook this resolve. But they did not shatter it.

Kirishima’s internship continued after Midoriya’s had ended.

Kirishima mentioned from time to time how busy Fatgum seemed behind closed doors, how often men showed up by the dozen for ‘talks’ with the hero, how often Fatgum left seeming frustrated and angry after a long afternoon holed up in the building’s conference room. Asui had seen it too. When Midoriya asked All Might about it, All Might waved it off as the ‘bureaucratic nonsense’ heroes deal with once going professional. He told Midoriya not to worry about it yet.

When senior year came around, the class was formally introduced to it, under the name Hero Branding.

It had a simple explanation: the hero names they had picked out freshman year were names for their brand, not themselves. ‘Deku’ was not the person—he was the name of a public image, controlled carefully behind the scenes by sponsors, agents, investors, and a team of PR staff. These people never appeared publicly. They would ruin the image of a self-motivated hero acting on his own resolve to save people. They worked behind the scenes. They had the final say.

All Might fumbled a bit with his explanation of the system, admitting meekly that at his level of prestige he was allowed to manage himself, and hadn’t dealt with a team in years. He tried to ease the fears of students who voiced concerns of becoming a puppet on strings. All Might assured them it wasn’t that intense. It was more just…irritating. Things like costume changes, charged political statements, or spontaneous hair-dying needed prior approval. Nothing too limiting.

Each student was assigned a team, and the whole week passed with stylists fussing over appearance, agents booking fan events, and sponsors talking brand promotion. Bakugou had blasted one overly-eager agent across the room. Ashido accidentally singed off a stylist’s eyebrow for trying to straighten her hair. But for the most part, the week passed without incident, only massive amounts of irritation.

Yaoyorozu adjusted the fastest of all of them. She giggled and talked and charmed her way through the week, until members of other teams were eyeing her own staff with envy. Yaoyorozu had completed photoshoots, signed three sponsors, and booked an appearance at an elementary school soccer team before any other student had even sorted out the hundreds of pages of contracts they needed to sign. She was a natural, instantly recognizable.

When asked about it in the dorm common room, Yaoyorozu dismissed questions with a bit of charming embarrassment, and talked briefly about how used to it she was. Her family came with a lot of social capital. She’d been attending publicity events since she could walk. She was disappointed with it all, like everyone else was, that heroing demanded this too. But she’d been preparing for it since freshman year, when her first internship gave her the inkling that professional life would come packaged with this sort of brand management.

Yaoyorozu’s costume was the first to change. Slits were taken out of the side. The straps were thinned. Heavy reinforcement was added to what remained, and Yaoyorozu mentioned with a bit of disappointment that it constricted her breathing. When Uraraka suggested asking for the costume to be changed back, Yaoyorozu laughed. She had suggested the costume change. It was a necessary sacrifice to bolster her professional image, and it gave more surface area to harness her quirk. The staff had applauded it. Her agents predicted an upshoot her in popularity among young male audiences. And it made sense with her quirk. It was a tactical, smart, all-around boon.

The other costume changes happened gradually, following a similar vein. Uraraka protested only a little when her stylists cut out a diamond-shaped swath from the back of her suit. Ashido argued with her people for a few weeks before she gave in, and agreed to the new leotard that left her legs exposed. Months of back-and-forth kept up before Jirou resigned herself to a form-fitting cat suit.

All Might tried to offer apologetic reassurances, that working with agents will get easier, and usually costume redesigns are for the best. The girls’ costume changes were nearly forgotten when Bakugou’s people took away his explosion flares, and all other disgruntlement was drowned under Bakugou’s sheer rage.

But time passed, and the students came into internships with mentors who knew how to handle their brand. They learned the tips of the trade, the strategies to get their way with costume, appearance, political stances, and image. The heroes were the ones truly holding the cards, if they knew how to play them right. The students ranted to each other late at night, showered and exhausted from internship work, until they slowly got the hang of controlling their brand. Bakugou got his flairs back. Jirou got her costume back. Yaoyorozu’s stayed the same, and most of her classmates were simply jealous of her chemistry with her public image team.

One night, Yaoyorozu did not return home.

This wasn’t too uncommon—most of the students had been on multi-day missions by now. But Yaoyorozu’s excursion hadn’t meant to take more than a day. She had managed to phone in that she wouldn’t be back at U.A. by the evening, and would appreciate if someone could take notes for her the next day. That had been at 9 pm. No one had been able to contact her since.

It wasn’t until 3 pm the next day that Todoroki received a text from her. “Mission’s complete. I’m okay. I’ll be back at the dorms by tonight.”

Yaoyorozu slipped back in quietly that night. Jirou was the first to notice, only because she’d gone into the girl’s room to find Yaoyorozu’s costume stripped on the floor, and the shower water running. Jirou texted out, and everyone except Bakugou gathered in the common area to see her.

When Yaoyorozu joined them, she was hardly recognizable.

Hair down, her nightgown fell far too loose over her shoulder. She was stark collar bones and hollow cheeks and thin wrists, her first few ribs visible beneath her sternum. She smiled, tired, but seemingly alright.

Todoroki stood as though ready to catch her. Yaoyorozu dismissed him with a wave.

“I know I look a little shocking right now. The doctors said I’m okay. I can gain the weight back.”

“What happened?” Midoriya asked.

“I had to over-use my quirk. But don’t worry, I’m already talking to my people.”

Yaoyorozu sat down. She crossed her legs, too-thin calves and bony ankles, feet with every tendon defined.

“About what?” 

“Changing my image. In hindsight, it was dangerous of me to maintain a BMI that low. I need reliable fat stores if I’m going to be any use on missions. It’s just how my quirk functions.” Yaoyorozu locked eyes with Midoriya. Her cheekbones cast shadows. “I lost 25 pounds from using my quirk on this mission. Doctors say if I’d dropped even 5 pounds more, I would have risked organ failure. I’m going to gain my weight back, and put on another 25 pounds on top of that, so I don’t ever run this kind of risk again.”

…

Yaoyorozu was tired. Everyone knew it from the look in her eyes during class, from the slouch in her back, from the late-night yelling matches that came muffled through the dorm walls. She vanished for doctors visits and returned with stacks of signed papers, most of which Jirou found in the girl’s room trash three days later. The telephone yelling matches slowly stopped. Yaoyorozu’s room grew quiet, save for the muted sounds of crying every few nights.

When Monday came around, Midoriya abandoned his normal lunchtime seat. He slid his tray next to Yaoyorozu and sat down. She looked up from her own plate—a cheeseburger, a sleeve of french-fries, ice cream and two milkshakes, all of which had been barely touched. Midoriya picked up the cookie from his own tray and held it out. “Want it?”

Silently, Yaoyorozu took it.

Midoriya waited, throwing sidelong glances to Yaoyorozu, chopsticks fiddling with his soba. “What did your agents say?”

Yaoyorozu bit into the cookie, chewing in silence. “They said I’m only allowed to put on five pounds more than my previous weight. ‘Chubby’ female heroes don’t get sponsorship and can’t maintain a public image, especially as a new hero who hasn’t even graduated yet.”

Midoriya’s eyes lingered on Yaoyorozu’s uniform, crumpled and too-big on a skeletal frame, hiding a sickliness not unlike All Might’s.

“…Then fire them,” he answered.

“I did.” Yaoyorozu put the cookie down. “I’ve talked to so many others. So has my mom. I got doctors notes. And when none of that worked I talked to Midnight, and Principle Nezu and All Might and….”

Yaoyorozu fell silent. Midoriya felt dread settle on his heart.

“They can’t do anything…?”

“They can’t change how the entire system works… Especially not now, when everything’s so uncertain.” Yaoyorozu picked up one of her milkshakes. She took a small sip and set it back down, eyes trained on her wrist. She moved her left hand over, and wrapped her fingers around her right wrist with ease, hardly any substance beneath it. “If I completely disregard what my agents say, I’ll never get networked in with the real heroes. I’ll never have enough footing under my name to gain sidekicks, or to be on the call-list for disasters, or to even be recognized on-scene as a hero. I’d just be a legal vigilante…and it’s more likely I’d be mistaken for an illegal one anyway. I’d have to carry my certification everywhere.”

“Could you…maybe do that?” Midoriya asked

“…Aizawa-sensei offered to let me be his sidekick… I was touched, but I don’t want to be a hero like Eraserhead. I don’t want to work at night and in the shadows and avoid people and never get my name out there. I want to be like All Might, like all of us do…”

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya whispered, because this time around he did not know what to say.

“…I almost died,” Yaoyorozu said after a silent moment. “Five more pounds and I could be dead. I can’t use my quirk at all right now. I’m useless like this.”

She crumpled forward, and her body jerked with silent, repressed sobs, ridges of her spine contouring through her uniform. Midoriya froze, only for a moment, before wrapping his arm around her and holding back his own tears budding in his eyes.

He wasn’t sure anymore what it meant to be a hero, or what this world saw in him, or what it saw in All Might and all the others.

He didn’t know, but at least it couldn’t be this. All he knew in his heart was that it couldn’t be this…

[mrmrsvegan]

Can a lack on intake of fats lead to hormonal imbalance?

This is one of the most contentious topics we come across & it causes irrational flame wars when it comes up.  Its sad because it takes more than a one liner to explain and people lose their brains & end up convincing others to make changes that are contrary and potentially harmful to their health.  In order to understand the answer you have to read to the end, you can’t just take one line and go nuts when you read it.  The answer depends on the totality of the knowledge, consider it FAT CALCULUS.  

There is an essential amount of dietary fat required and also an essential amount of body fat required. They are not the same nor directly related, though you will hear such comments, such as women "need" to eat more fat because their bodies need more fat. A certain amount of body fat is required and is called "essential." In men, it's around 4-6% and in women around 8-12%. It is higher in women because of gender and hormonal differences and reproductive issues. Going below this amount causes problems especially in regard to proper hormone production & functioning.  

This is not directly related to the percent fat in the diet but more to total calories as as you can eat a diet with a high percent fat that is too low in calories & have the problem. The main driver is low body fat from reduced total caloric intake. Those on Caloric Restriction (CR) who have discussed having this issue were following medium to high fat diets.   

As long as someone is following the program, getting in enough calories to maintain a "healthy" weight and consuming a variety of foods, this should not be a problem. However, we do occasionally see someone push the limits thinking this is a completely no fat diet, and try to minimize and/or exclude any and all foods higher in fat, even in the recommended foods (i.e., oatmeal being 16% fat) and/or try to push their BMI's to low (below 18.5) or trying to force their BMI to the lowest end in the lower range of acceptable. I noticed a push for this after I posted that the lower end of the BMI (18.5 - 21.9) may be healthier. 

~Jeff Novick RD

Understand the negative effects of a high fat diet. 

http://www.pcrm.org/health/cancer-resources/diet-cancer/nutrition/fat-and-hormonal-effects

Several of the most common forms of cancer are linked to sex hormones. This is true of cancers of the breast, uterus, ovary, prostate, and perhaps other sites. The amount of hormones in our bodies and their actions are determined, in large part, by the foods we eat.Fatty foods affect the body in many ways and have a strong influence on hormonal activity in the body. First, high-fat diets increase the amount of estrogens, the female sex hormones, in the blood. It is known that many breast tumors are "fueled" by estrogens. Estrogens are normal and essential hormones for both women and men, but the more estrogen there is, the greater the driving force behind some kinds of breast cancer. On high-fat diets, estrogen levels increase. When women adopt low-fat diets, their estrogen levels drop noticeably in a very short time.31-33 Vegetarians have significantly lower estrogen levels than non-vegetarians, in part because of the lower fat content of their diet. In addition, they have more of certain carrier molecules, called sex hormone binding globulin, which circulate in the blood and have the job of holding onto sex hormones, keeping them inactive until they are needed. Fatty foods do the reverse: they increase estrogens and reduce the amount of the carrier molecule that is supposed to keep estrogens in check.American Institute For Cancer Researchhttp://www.aicr.org/reduce-your-cancer-risk/diet/elements_calorie_density.html?_ga=2.166462909.2029095182.1504671390-2129202042.1504671390

Simply put: If you load up your plate with plant foods, which contain lots of water and fiber and not much fat, you’ll feel full on fewer calories.And that’s important because calorie-dense meals promote overweight and obesity, and excess body fat is a primary cause of many cancers.

http://www.aicr.org/reduce-your-cancer-risk/weight/reduce_weight_cancer_link.html

Body fat is a metabolically active organ.Too much body fat can increase cancer risk in several ways:Fat cells produce estrogen, and high levels of estrogen links to risk of some cancers.Fat cells produce a variety of proteins that cause high levels of insulin and other hormones, which in turn may spur cancer cell growth.Excess body fat produce cytokines and other substances that can lead to chronic inflammation, which links to increased cancer risk.Research suggests that fat at the waist -- visceral fat -- is even more active in producing growth stimulants. So overweight people – particularly if they are apple-shaped – have high levels of substances circulating in their blood that stimulate cell division. The more often cells divide, the more opportunity there is for cancer to develop.Because of the overwhelming evidence, AICR recommends maintaining a healthy weight throughout life to best reduce your chances of developing cancer.http://www.aicr.org/cancer-research-upd ... Daily.html

I hope you understand its not the % of fat on a whole food plant based diet, but the total amount of calories & understand the evidence presented in the links above & can help clear up confusion.  When you hear “I added fat and everything got better” its really ‘I added enough calories & regardless of the plant based source it would have gotten better’  (WFPB is not deficient in fat)  I have plenty more evidence to share on this topic, studies & biological texts.  Helping people understand what is really going on can save so many lives, but emotional triggered macro maniacs keep confusing people.  We don’t advocate a no fat diet (impossible on whole plant foods), we advocate a mostly whole food starch based diet (remember oats are 16% fat) that is sufficient in all essential nutrients and calorically adequate to maintain a healthy BMI.  The people who promote fasting / cleanses / clean eating / raw diets & other nonsense are the ones that deserve the rage.  We get the narcissists attacking us over other people’s dietary sins because they simply are not informed or intelligent enough to understand what we are talking about & how its different from HCLF extremists who are probably calorically and protein deficient...   We are advocating the healthiest diet on the planet here & if you are underweight for what ever reason, denser calorically rich foods, from flours to seeds will equally help someone meet their caloric needs, but dietary counseling from an RD who specializes in under eating is highly recommended.  The confusion is not going to get any easier, but eating a health supporting diet is simple once you learn to ask for the evidence. 

[fuckyeahbadcodocs]

Name: Mira 'Paws' Cole

As callsigns go, I don’t think Paws is half bad. It’s not as grandiose as some that stumble through this door, not edgy and hardcore... It sounds like the kind of nonsense a military faction would hand down to the new kid.

Appearance: Height- 5"9. 

There is a desperate need for more lady OCs who are not like 5′2″ every time. I can at least salute the creator for this...

Weight- 134. 

...And a sensible weight for someone in the military! A little googling tells me this BMI is in the normal range, if on the smaller side. No one has to give this OC a sandwich for her to run out and kick some tail.

Eye color- Emerald green. 

Mmm, unlike my fellow mods, I don’t think using specific descriptors for eyes is a dealbreaker or special snowflake. There’s a lot of shades of green out there. However, I would maybe pick something other than a precious gem to describe a character’s eye color. It’s become a bit of a dead horse at this point.

Hair color- Dark brown.

So far, everything is really good, very low-key. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop to explain why the hell this OC is doing on this page.

Where she serves- U.S. Army Ranger

Recent as it may be, women are slowly entering the ranks of the Rangers through the school, if not actually able to serve in its ranks. Assuming some level of research was put into what it would take for a female OC to break ground like this, we might be onto something.

Now, if you’re all prepared, the other shoe drops... now.

Position- Hired medic/Assassin

Well, medic OCs are old hat at this point, but as long as there’s real research and a plot, I’m not totally opposed to someone examining a side of canon that isn’t totally defined by missions and frontline action--

Wait.

A medic’s first rule is to do no harm... and she is an assassin. Does anyone else see the glaring lack of fundamental understanding of how the military works in that statement, or just me? I’m sure at some point in history or another, a killer has used the disguise of a medical personnel to get closer to a target, but that’s not exactly military standard, not in this day and age.

For that matter, why is the US Army hiring assassins when they have some of the most elite fighting forces on the planet? Any one of Ramirez’s team could easily take up a sniper rifle and hang out for a few hours waiting for a good shot. The Army does not need assassins in the classical sense. It would be much more sensible if this OC was freelance, PIC, or maybe even part of a CIA that is far darker than the average Modern Warfare civilian accounts for.

But for your baseline US Army attache, this is going well over the line. It renders basically all past praise I put upon the OCs design nearly moot. I can’t even imagine what an international DISASTER it would be if an American medic was outed as a professional, government-sanctioned assassin. It would change the face of warfare, totally flip centuries of regulations about medics and their role on its head. Everything would just go to absolute shit if people trusted to heal and stay out of trouble came out as paid professional killers operating with their government’s blessing. 

You can make an OC interesting without relying on secret identities or shocking swerves, or defying basic military roles that leave little hope for a character being an assassin.

History: Mira had never thought she could go to war-and at least experince anything, But now she's been sent over to work as a medic. She'll meet anyone and (oddly) enough; everyone. 

The Rangers, Shepherd, Allen, these are characters I can understand an OC rubbing elbows with, given the game and faction in question. Maybe even  a brush with Team Metal, if you want to broach MW3 and the fact both Rangers and Delta fought against the Russian invasion on the East Coast. Everyone, though? That’s pushing it. The 141 and the Rangers are never anywhere near each other in game proper to allow for meeting ‘everyone.’

Is Mira surprised? Kind of. Sure she has some crushes on certian people. But this is war, not the love boat. 

As opposed to OC/Canon shipping as many people are, so long as it’s not the focal point and overshadowing a much more interesting plot... I personally see no problem with mentioning a character might be interested in someone else. Especially if it’s buffered with the fact ‘hey there’s a war going on, let’s not worry about our alleged sexual tension and instead focus on not. fucking. dying.’

None of this excuses the walking International Shitshow Waiting To Happen, but it’s a surprising touch.

She also earned the name nickname 'Paws', from the wolf paws tatooed and her back, and two small ones on the back of her neck.

That’s not usually how callsign assignments work, it’s usually more of a callback to a memorable incident or a personality trait. 

For pure hypotheticals, let’s say Soap once slid off of something during training, or is very thorough about ‘cleaning’ out a room when on ops. Either of these things might lead to teammates alluding to him as ‘Soap,’ either due to his slippery fuck up, or his sheer ‘cleaning’ power. It’s not like teammates looked at Soap’s haircut and just decided ‘You’re Mohawk now.’ There’s more to callsigns and military culture than that.

Personality: Mira is a kind, gentle, and calm soul. But if somthing goes wrong; she; like Dunn would freak out just the same. 

For both of her preposterous careers, staying cool is a part of the job description. 

A medic has to know how to perform under intense pressure, when the lives of their patients are on the line, sometimes in the middle of a firefight. The military medic career is not one you want to freak out in. 

Assassins must master the art of planning -- entrance, loadout, the exact moment they take down the target, and an exit strategy. They have to be veritable ghosts, leaving no trace of themselves, and with the patience to wait sometimes days for one brief moment and then a quick way out. A freak out at any stage of an assassination is a surefire bullet in the chest at best and a trip to a black site in your target’s home country at worst.

Also if shes meant to be calm why the hell would she freak out when a plan goes to shit? Why does everything about this OC oppose prior information?

She has an affectionate side, but tends not to use it. Theres moments where she can be totally awkward.

Why? Why any of that? I know I harp on explanations in just about every review I do, but I’m just really passionate about OC creators explaining to their audience how and why things work. Personality traits existing at odds with one another are a good reason to have explanations in your profile. If this OC is kind and gentle, why hide her affectionate side? Is she perhaps uncomfortable with overt displays of affection, while still being super sweet and kind to people? Is there a disconnect between her professional personality and her off-duty persona?

Hell if I know, that’s all that’s said for me to analyze.

Also, how awkward are we talking here? ‘My mouth sometimes moves faster than my brain’ awkward, or ‘I was apparently raised in a cave and have no understanding of several normal every day things’ awkward? Much like there are many different shades of green, there are many different flavors of awkward. 

Secrets: Mira is a So-Called 'Assassin', as she describes herself, but is labled as a Sniper by others(As she states during Modern Warfare) but tends to lie when someone questions her. 

A sniper is not an assassin in the classical sense. A sniper is a part of many military teams, and is in fact basic in certain circumstances. A sniper is a legitimate specialist and would never cross over with medical corps.

A lone sniper might well be an assassin, but a sniper on a military team is usually just that: a sniper. Not an assassin, sure as hell not a medic, but definitely a person who is good at waiting, communicating with their spotter, and shooting OpFor as needed.

This might come as a shock, but I don’t think this OC makes much sense, guys.

On that note, why the hell is she in the original Modern Warfare? The American faction in COD4 was the Marines, not Rangers.

She comes to the Army Rangers (In Modern Wafare 2) posing as a Medic, but still serves as a Sniper, she them keeps her position as an Assassin in Modern Warfare 3, where she is seperated and is now on the hunt for Vladimir Makarov.

If she ‘comes to’ the Rangers in MW2, who was she with originally in MW? Was she supposed to be a freelance assassin that the US Army looked at and said ‘good enough for us?’ I really don’t get this bit, I’m sincerely confused by the sequence of events now.

As for MW3... That’s just poor writing and we all know it. The implication Ramirez and company are out taking the Kremlin, and this OC gets separated from the real party. I’m offended for her.

Other: She hates the way anyone treats attack dogs, she has a way to avoid being attacked by them. In this case, she carries treats to throw them off. Even the most vicious dog can be strayed away when confronted by Mira.

No. No, actually, they can’t. These dogs are broken and remade into fur-covered death machines that exist only to destroy whatever they are pointed at. There is nothing you can do to ‘stray’ them, let along with treats. Maybe if you throw them fresher meat than you, but otherwise I have no idea what would even come close to swaying a legitimate dog of war. They would eat her alive, brutally, and then turn their attention to the other Rangers.

Gory, yes. True, also yes. Attack dogs are not misunderstood babies anymore. They are straight up gone, redesigned to do nothing but kill whoever their kennel master sics them on. Kill or be killed is the only way to deal with an enemy attack dog in the middle of battle. Now excuse me, I have to go hug my own dog for a little bit.

Family: Both her parents died when she was 14, but she made friends with a kid named Chuck Seasons *Aka Chef* and the two became friends and have stayed that way ever since.

Let me guess, a member of this creators OC cadre? Did making friends with this kid cure the ache that is losing both of your parents and being made an orphan as a young teenager?

Animal Companions: Mira owns a black German Shepherd named 'Coach', after her famed basketball coach during middle school.

I’m not sure about this one, but I think this Coach guy’s parents really wanted him to be a coach.

So anyway, Mod M would like to posit this question: Why is it that the best/most down to earth designs always end up being tied to brain-breakingly out of touch with the real world OCs? For that matter, why am I always the one left holding the flaming bag that is these ocs?