#I'm over 300 lbs

[riverkhamsin]

This is why I've been following the same GP for the last 25 years and why I'm terrified of her retiring. She's never blamed anything on my weight. She's never prescribed "lose weight". I don't have an issue stepping on the scale, because she only uses it as a way to screen for drastic changes.

I know it's not actually that hard for doctors. I've experienced it. It's such a huge fucking systemic problem for no real reason other than discrimination, poor training and lack of judgement.

it’s also fucked up that fat people literally fear going to the doctor for anything because they know the first thing out of their dr’s mouth no matter what their ailment is, is gonna be “lose weight lol” broken leg? lose weight. rash? lose weight. whooping cough? lose weight binch!!!!! like we get it. but can you just write my prescription you bitch so i can go eat a salad and not call you again until im about to die of the plague????

[stopfunkinwmyheart]

I tried calling pam earlier when I saw everyones hours on the new schedule. she doesn't answer so I texted her like yeeo I'm probably gonna head out early if I don't hear back from you, just wondering about the hours still. because I had already asked why my hours were cut but she never answered. so she's like "did the schedule not get sent out" and I'm all nah I meant like there are 2 dudes on their phones telling me about the chicken that is done, one who has 35 hours next week. the manager on duty instead of telling them to get a clue tells me about the chicken too. not to mention dude wears crocs with holes and joggers every day but pam sent some dumb ass kid home one day all pissy because he wore them. I didn't mention this but it just blows my mind like does he eat her pussy I don't get it. none of these coddled retards do anything. but I continue like yeah cause I saw that dudes who leave the store after dropping a dead bird from the ceiling are still on that thang for 40. just thought that was odd. she says k. she doubled my hours next week by giving me 5-1 and 6-1 am on saturday and sunday. I'm going to let her know monday that I can't be there.

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Hugging König

Hope you like your spine breaking, bro. No seriously this guy will give soul crushing hugs. It's gotten to the point that the only safe way to hug him is to give him an awkward shoulder side hug. Anything more and you risk your life.

If you've gotten to the point that this man is willingly hugging you without holding himself back, you are one of the blessed(?) few to ever experience this phenomena. Don't get me wrong, he does the awkward polite hug when leaving parties before, but other than that the only time he hugs people is if they hug him first, and even then he gives an awkward pat on the back before he subtly shimmies away. The only others close enough to experience a true König Hug (tm) are Horangi and his family. If you've gotten the privilege to have this man hug you, you've earned his deepest trust and respect.

The only way to get this oaf to loosen his grip is if you squeak, which will remind him that he is in fact a big man and so he'll relax a bit, giving the true glory of a König hug. Once he relaxes his grip, they are the absolute best hugs. They're so warm and he's got a nice amount of softness to his form, so you can sink into his chest. If you want to hold on, he'll rock you gently and tuck his face into your hair. Honestly, if it weren't his first instinct to kill everything with overbearing kindness, he might actually be a viable hug therapist. Sadly, unless you train him otherwise, he's a chiropractor.

In the end, you can probably train him to be a bit gentler and not crack your back whenever he comes back home to you (unless you have a death wish, in which case hats off to you for being able to take it). Sometimes he'll get overwhelmed and forget his training, so just watch out for that. Maybe put a barrier between you and him when he comes back from a long deployment if you want to avoid meeting God prematurely. Also, I'm sorry to tell you this, but please don't assume your training will apply to anyone but you. Pray for anyone you introduce this man to.

However, one thing you can't train out of this man is how he hugs you. His favourite hugs are a bit of an ordeal. He'll crouch down and envelope you in a hug and then stand up straight so your feet are dangling. This is regardless of your height, btw. He's done this to Horangi (it took him a whole minute to process what happened because nobody's picked him up in a hug since he was 12). You, his partner, are most certainly not immune, no matter your size. You weigh over 300 lb? He'll lift you. This man has one helluva dead lift.

You will be lifted.

You will be crushed.

Nobody is safe from König's hugs.

[vaspider]

If you have celiac or otherwise can't eat wheat, btw, and you like bread, I highly recommend investing in a breadmaker. Even the best store-bought gluten-free bread does not hold a candle to the stuff that comes out of our breadmaker, and it's cheaper per slice even when we buy bread mix in single-loaf bags.

This is our breadmaker. Evie got it on sale, but it is an investment. I'm not going to pretend it isn't a chunk of change up front. There are cheaper ones, but the reason I like this one and think it's worth the money:

It has two smaller paddles, where our older bread maker that my mom got us and got destroyed by getting construction dust in it had one big paddle in the middle. This leaves a big hole in the middle of the finished loaf, which makes the bread much less useful for, like, sandwiches.

Zojirushi is not as well-known a brand in the US, but it's a Brand Name in Japan for good reason. Evie's had our Zojirushi rice cooker for over a decade & we had to replace the inner bowl once bc someone used metal utensils in it and scratched the non-stick coating. We expect to use this machine for at least a decade.

You can program your own cycles, which we found really useful. Evie built a custom cycle that removed the punch-down sections (gluten-free bread tends not to rise as much) and that made our perfect loaf.

A lot of bread machines produce very tall, square loaves, which are awkward to slice, store, and make sandwiches with. This produces loaves that make good sandwiches and toast, and the French toast slices don't crowd the pan.

The top heating element on this gives a really amazingly browned top crust that we definitely didn't get on our old machine.

It's so pretty.

So how is it cheaper in the long run if the machine costs $300+? A little like this:

We use Pamela's Bread Mix bc it's really consistent and easy - you need the bread mix, water, yeast, 3 egg whites, and oil. (We use avocado oil and find it best and most consistent, but regular vegetable oil works!) We buy Pamela's in bulk, and without any subscription discounts or whatever, the $48 pack of 3 bags makes about 11.5 loaves. With the cost of yeast and eggs and stuff, it ends up costing about $4.50 a loaf. (If you buy your yeast in larger bags & store it in an airtight container, you can create less waste and it's also cheaper.)

By comparison, a loaf of Franz GF Bread costs $7-8, and Canyon Bakehouse usually runs about the same.

However, that's not an apples to apples comparison because the Franz loaf is an 18 oz. loaf, whereas our breadmaker makes a 2 lb. loaf. Assuming even the lower-end cost for getting a Franz loaf at the store, an equivalent amount of bread would cost $12.42, and it's not nearly as good.

(Yes, gluten-free bread is fucking expensive. That's part of why I'm writing this post in the first place.)

Anyway, assuming you eat 2 lbs. of bread a week in your house - a breadmaker loaf, basically, to make the math simple - you'll end up spending $7.92 less on bread every week. That means that even at the most expensive cost for the Zojirushi, if you buy it at its highest price (don't do that! wait for a sale!) it'll take 50 weeks - about a year - before the breadmaker pays for itself. If you manage to get it on a 25% off sale (which we did), it pays for itself in about 9 months.

Nine months, I must stress, in which you are eating much more delicious bread.

We tend to go through a couple of loaves a week because toast, sandwiches, and melts are great food for people with low spoons.

Evie and I perfected the Pamela's mix recipe for this particular machine - I'll get it typed up when I'm downstairs next, along with the quasi-babka recipe. (Really, it's like a marble cake and babka and bread had a baby, and it's a family favorite.)

Bread good. The end.

[bethanythebogwitch]

I recently found out a show I liked is 10 years old now so to not be the oldest thing on this blog I'm talking coelacanths for Wet Beast Wednesday. Coelacanths are rare fish famed for being living fossils. While that term is highly misleading, it is true that coelacanths are among the only remaining lobe-fined fish and were thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago before being rediscovered in modern times.

(image id: a wild coelacanth. It is a large, mostly grey fish with splotches of yellowish scales. Its fins are attached to fleshy lobes. It is seen from the side, facing the top right corner of the picture)

Coelacanth fossils had been known since the 1800s and they were believed to have gone extinct in the late Cretaceous period. That was until December 1938, when a museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was informed of an unusual specimen that had been pulled in by local fishermen. After being unable to identify the fish, she contacted a friend, ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith, who told her to preserve the specimen until he could examine it. Upon examining it early next year, he realized it was indeed a coelacanth, confirming that they had survived, undetected, for 66 million years. Note that fishermen living in coelacanth territory were already aware of the fish before they were formally described by science. Coelacanths are among the most famous examples of a lazarus taxon. This term, in the context of ecology and conservation, means a species or population that is believed to have gone extinct but is later discovered to still be alive. While coelacanths are among the oldest living lazarus taxa, they aren't the oldest. They are beaten out by a genus of fly (100 million years old) and a type of mollusk (over 300 million years old).

(image: a coelacanth fossil. It is a dark brown imprint of a coelacanth on white rock. Its skeleton is visible in the imprint)

Coelacanths are one of only two surviving groups of lobe-finned fish along with the lungfishes. Lobe-finned fish are bony fish notable for their fins being attached to muscular lobes. By contrast, ray-finned fish (AKA pretty much every fish you've ever heard of that isn't a shark) have their fins attached directly to the body. That may not sound like a big difference, but it actually is. The lobes of lobe-finned fish eventually evolved into the first vertebrate limbs. That makes lobe-finned fish the ancestors of all reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, including you. In fact, you are more closely related to a coelacanth than a coelacanth is to a tuna. Coelacanths were thought to be the closest living link to tetrapods, but genetic testing has shown that lungfish are actually closer to the ancestor of tetrapods.

(image id: a scientific diagram depicting the taxonomic relationships of early lobe-finned fish showing their evolution to proto-tetrapods like Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega, to true tetrapods. Source)

There are two known living coelacanth species: the west Indian ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and the Indonesian coelacanth (L. menadoensis). Both are very large fish, capable of exceeding 2 m (6.6 ft) in length and 90 kg (200 lbs). Their wikipedia page describes them as "plump", which seems a little judgmental to me. Their tails are unique, consisting of two lobes above and below the end of the tail, which has its own fin. Their scales are very hard and thick, acting like armor. The mouth is small, but a hinge in its skull, not found in any other animal, allows the mouth to open extremely wide for its size. In addition, they lack a maxilla (upper jawbone), instead using specialized tissue in its place. They lack backbones, instead having an oil-filled notochord that serve the same function. The presence of a notochord is the key characteristic of being a chordate, but most vertebrates only have one in embryo, after which it is replaced by a backbone. Instead of a swim bladder, coelacanths have a vestigial lung filled with fatty tissue that serves the same purpose. In addition to the lung, another fatty organ also helps control buoyancy. The fatty organ is large enough that it forced the kidneys to move backwards and fuse into one organ. Coelacanths have tiny brains. Only about 15% of the skull cavity is filled by the brain, the rest is filled with fat.

(image id: a coalacanth. It is similar to the one on the above image, but this one is blue in color and the head is seen more clearly, showing an open mouth and large eye)

One of the reasons it took so long for coelacanths to be rediscovered is their habitat. They prefer to live in deeper waters in the twilight zone, between 150 and 250 meters deep. They are also nocturnal and spend the day either in underwater caves or swimming down into deeper water. They typically stay in deeper water or caves during the day as colder water keeps their metabolism low and conserves energy. While they do not appear to be social animals, coelacanths are tolerant of each other's presence and the caves they stay in may be packed to the brim during the day. Coelacanths are all about conserving energy even when looking for food. They are drift feeders, moving slowly with the currents and eating whatever they come across. Their diet primarily consists of fish and squid. Not much is known about how they catch their prey, but they are capable of rapid bursts of speed that may be used to catch prey and is definitely used to escape predators. They are believed to be capable of electroreception, which is likely used to locate prey and avoid obstacles. Coelacanths swim differently than other fish. They use their lobe fins like limbs to stabilize their movements as they drift. This means that while coelacanths are slow, they are very maneuverable. Some have even been seen swimming upside-down or with their heads pointed down.

(image: an underwater cave wilt multiple coelacanths residing in it. 5 are clearly visible, with the fins of others showing from offscreen)

Coelacanths are a vary race example of bony fish that give live birth. They are ovoviviparous, meaning the egg is retained and hatches inside the mother. Gestation can take between 2 and 5 years (estimates differ) and multiple offspring are born at a time. It is possible that females may only mate with a single male at a time, though this is not confirmed. Coelacanths can live over 100 years and do not reach full maturity until age 55. This very slow reproduction and maturation rate likely contributes to the rarity of the fish.

(image: a juvenile coelacanth. Its body shape is the same as those of adults, but with proportionately larger fins. There are green laser beams shining on it. These are used by submersibles to calculate the size of animals and objects)

Coelacanths are often described as living fossils. This term refers to species that are still similar to their ancient ancestors. The term is losing favor amongst biologists due to how misleading it can be. The term os often understood to mean that modern species are exactly the same as ancient ones. This is not the case. Living coelacanth are now known to be different than those who existed during the Cretaceous, let alone the older fossil species. Living fossils often live in very stable environments that result in low selective pressure, but they are still evolving, just slower.

(image: a coelacanth swimming next to a SCUBA diver)

Because of the rarity of coelacanths, it's hard to figure out what conservation needs they have. The IUCN currently classifies the west Indian ocean coelacanth as critically endangered (with an estimated population of less than 500) and the Indonesian coelacanth as vulnerable. Their main threat is bycatch, when they are caught in nets intended for other species. They aren't fished commercially as their meat is very unappetizing, but getting caught in nets is still very dangerous and their slow reproduction and maturation means that it is long and difficult to replace population losses. There is an international organization, the Coelacanth Conservation Council, dedicated to coelacanth conservation and preservation.

(image: a coelacanth facing the camera. The shape of its mouth makes it look as though it is smiling)

[thatguywhofedme]

Seriously ?!?

You think you can stop me from feeding you ?!

I decide when you have "enough" I can't even believe you would use such a word in my presence

You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into when you messaged me

you said and I quote "make me the biggest, heaviest and lardiest piggy anyone's ever seen, I want to be yours and there's nothing you could do to change my mind, let me be the morbidly obese porker I deserve to be, feed me until my body can't take it anymore, you have free reign over me"

That was 750 lbs ago, now look at what we've done together !!

Look at those rolls coming from everywhere, you used to have a pot belly, but now you have a mountain of a gut that leaves you breatless just from trying to reach your 9th cheeseburger, your fat ass is now a bench I can use for myself or to put containers of food on top of it

Your arms are so fat you can't even reach the sides of your body anymore I have to literally feed you everything and your sponge baths takes hours just from the sheer amount of beautiful lard filled body rolls and crevices you have

You go through a dozen oxygen tanks in a day since your body hasn't been able to breath properly 300 lbs ago and don't get me started on the bariatric bed, you cracked the screen of your built in scale, I don't even know how much you weigh anymore, last time I checked you were 1037 lbs, that was 6 months ago !!

What I'm trying to say is, I truly enjoy this, you're exactly where you wanted to be and there's nothing you can do about it other than getting much fatter for the both of us

Now, open your greedy mouth so I can funnel you your 5th lard shake of the day my beautiful piggy 🐷

[alienpossession]

After a very demanding workout session and having several hours to spend before his date, Dean decided to slide into his Instagram and treated his close friends with some personal Q&A sesh

But, all the close friend and Dean himself are not necessarily of this world, to put it simply. Hence, the question that started to pile up might not sound like a series of question that you would ask in a normal human conversation

"How can you end up in his body? What's the trick? My host is a decent-sized jock and the battle to gain control over his body was crazy tough, cannot imagine yours,"

I just followed the manual, you know. Caught them off-guard and ensure that they are tired. He fell asleep inside this personal sauna after a grueling workout. Add the fact that he was cutting to prep himself for a bodybuilding competition, well, that's a cocktail for success to tame a beastly jock this size

"Is the sexual stamina better compared to your previous host, noting the size differences 😜😜"

LOL, sorry for the disappointment back then, Gustavo. There's not a lot of people that can withstand your sexual prowess anyway, but I'm definitely the top if we are ever hooking up again

"How do you handle the first 24 hours? The crash after all his memory become accessible must've been out of this world!"

Messed my bed like a baby, but it's cum and sweat instead of piss HAHAH. Yeah, crazy shit, dude is a horny, power-hungry muscle beast

"So, have you converted his significant others? Or do you plan to just mindfuck them later so they will be working as indentured labor?"

Nope, not yet. He lived on his own anyway so we gotta wait for the 4th of July break for it to happen. But the girlfriend already fell though, bitch never stood a chance once I plugged her throat with this monster, she was a sobbing flailing mess when mini-mes swarmed her throat and entire body. Now I told her to help out on slowly infecting my friends. Gotta do it subtly though, no reason actually, just love to play with those oblivious human

"Favorite thing to do as human, aside from sex obviously,"

To be honest, partying. It's just so nice being a 6'6", 225 lbs mass of a presence in a dark, packed club or even festival grounds with great music. I always have party or at least a night out inside my calendar for most of the week, such a blast. And of course, sex also involved to really spice things up, but honestly I don't mind if there's any sex or not as long as the party is lit

And Dean keep on answering all sort of other questions, thinking that his identity as a converted alien puppet remain hidden due to the close friends feature. But his little brother, a 21 years old sophomore living 300 miles away from him, took screenshot of every single close friend stories that Dean made, his mind distraught by the fact that his older brother practically no longer exist but his dick chubbed up to the point of leaking pre as his wildest sexual kink manifested in real time and happened to someone he personally knows.

So, like any horny 21 years old, he decided to rub one out while letting his brother stories played in loop. Should he confront Dean about all of this? Or will that risk him turned into a puppet too?

[bigboigorgeous]

I love me a feedee that actively loves stuffing - but I think I've determined that's not the kind of gainer I am. I am your gradual gainer, your 'didn't watch what he was eating' gainer. Your gets stoned and snacks too much gainer.

...And it's really starting to show. I keep saying I'm on the verge of needing to buy the next size up with my clothes, and that's very true. But if I behave enough - that won't be for at least a little while.

I can keep my calories totally reasonable if I stick to a routine, but the problem is that there are so many things that aren't routine. Cue the holidays. Already, I KNOW I'm going to pretend that I can moderate. But I won't. I will eat everything I can, especially the snacks and the sugary stuff. I won't be able to help myself. I'll come back from out of town in a week, try to get into my tightest pair of jeans, and if they don't fit...

I'm going to feel a lot of things. Disappointed in myself. A little scared. Terribly turned on. All of it.

I feel trapped by this kink, but the problem is that being trapped by it makes me even hornier. It's not about the food, it's about the lack of control, about being reduced into nothing but a horny, greedy beast who can't stop himself.

Every time I post on this blog. Every time I overeat. Every time I bounce and jiggle my growing belly. Every time I get off to thinking of a me over 300/400/500 lbs... I am dooming myself more and more. I am telling my body "we're going to get fatter". And I will keep pretending that I won't. I say that I still have time to reel this in. Get back on my exercise bike. Eat better.

...But there's cookies in my kitchen and I'm going to go eat at least two of them right now.

[juliasgoodusername]

Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.

Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT

Exterior

Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.

Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.

Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.

I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘

First floor

"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30

Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.

“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.

I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-

Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.

... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.

... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue

Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.

The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13

There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)

The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.

- The Raven King, Chapter 9

Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.

I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.

The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).

Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.

Second Floor

When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11

Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.

Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.

- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49

We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.

Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).

Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.

As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.

Attic

Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.

... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34

Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!

Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!

Mud Room/Cellar/Basement

This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.

My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.

This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.

Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.

[ithinkimauggie]

SISCO JUST POUNCED ON THAT HOMEWRECKER LIKE A BIG CAT. BRO WAS OUT HERE WITH THAT MAJESTIC LEAP. BRO TOOK HER DOWN WITH THE GRACE OF A LION. BRO REALLY JUST

THE AIR THIS BOY GOT LIKE HOW!??!?!?!?!

Me religious trauma keeps forcing me to pause "In the Hands of the Prophets" every ten minutes because the sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude it's all too familiar and far too much to stomache, but i also had to pause it once because I couldn't stop laughing from O'brien getting so mad about being denied a popsickle that he immidiately resorted to physical violence without asking any other questions. Honestly iconic behavior, shoulda done that at bible camp.

[breakfast-n-backrolls]

Humiliate my over 300 lbs prediabetic ass, tell me your darkest fantasies about my unhealthy, growing body. My DMs are open. Make me feel like I'm ruining myself and make me want to do it even faster and more extremely. I'm in such a dark horny mood as of late.

[cripplecharacters]

i'm debating giving one of my OCs strabismus exotropia. the work/story is YA SFF. part of my reasoning is he's one of two characters in the group who's the Brains, his specialty being history and languages, and his magic relates to mind reading and telekinesis, and i know too often characters with eye differences are portrayed as the opposite of smart. one of his big hobbies is reading and i know strabismus can affect it bc of focus/headaches, so i thought maybe reading/being fluent in braille could help him engage in his hobby when actual reading is getting on his nerves / refer to his amblyopic eye as his "permanent side eye" as he can be quite critical of others sometimes. his personality is being smug but normally right and very sure of himself (though not without his insecurities), he's seen as a bit of a Pretty Boy (handsome), and is the youngest of his group of friends so they do look out for and protect him a bit more. is there anything else i should look out for, or any way i may be playing into tropes i'm unaware of? he's also queer (gay) and brown (pakistani coded) if that helps any provide context, and has an antagonistic bickering but genuine friendship with another boy (the other brains) that eventually develops into a romance

Hello!

In general, this sounds like a perfectly fine character concept and there's nothing about his personality/portrayal that's immediately jumping out at me. He sounds like a well rounded character, which is something I'm very glad to see!

One thing I would like to mention is that, while braille may be a useful tool for him at times, it's not likely to be a feasible solution for his day-to-day life.

Braille books aren't like regular printed books, there are quite a few differences that make them much more difficult to use:

Size:

Braille books aren't easy to carry around. With the possible exception of some smaller children's books, most are pretty thick and VERY heavy. In fact, many braille books are split up into several separate volumes for this reason.

To put the difference into perspective, let's look at The Fellowship of the Ring (The first Lord of the Rings book).

A standard printed copy generally weighs around 1.5 lbs, give or take a bit if it's a hardcover. A braille copy of the same book weighs over 15 lbs.

This printed copy has 432 pages including pages for spacing, author's notes, etc. The braille copy has 873, not including any non-text pages.

The physical dimensions of braille vs printed books also differs greatly. While a printed copy of The Fellowship of the Ring may easily fit in a small bag or even a pocket, the braille copy is around the size of a standard three ring binder (In terms of length and width at least).

This is all to say that taking a braille book with him out on the go wouldn't exactly be a simple task and, because of how braille is read, reading on the bus or on a park bench or anywhere that isn't a flat surface without disruption wouldn't be a possibility.

Cost:

Aside from the problems with physically reading and using braille books, it's also very difficult to acquire them in the first place. Braille books are EXPENSIVE.

Depending on the availability of the book, the size, and the popularity, a single braille novel can go for anywhere from 50$ to well over 300$ (In Canadian dollars).

The hardcover printed copy of The Fellowship of the Ring mentioned before costs around 25$ (Again, in Canadian dollars). The braille version ranges from around 150$ to 225$ depending on the type of braille.

And if your character wants to request a less popular book, it can still be pretty expensive. There's a wide range of factors that can affect the cost and it varies so wildly that it's hard to get a reliable estimate but they could be looking at anywhere between 5$ - 50$ per page.

Although some libraries may have braille books and there are several virtual libraries for the blind with braille books, it can still get very pricey for them to build up their own collection.

Availability:

In part because of this cost, there is a very low availability of braille titles compared to printed titles.

If your character is into more popular books like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or some of the classics, they'll have little issues finding a copy.

Beyond that, unfortunately, they'd be out of luck. If a book isn't incredibly well known, it's a very slim chance of there being a braille version. Likewise, there's also very low chances of finding more recent releases.

Even one of my old favourites, The Perks of Being a Wallflower -- which was written around ten years ago and is fairly popular, doesn't have any braille copies.

While it is possible to get a book printed in braille for yourself, the costs of it can get quite high (As shown above) and it's not generally an option that people go for.

Durability:

The last point I want to make is that braille books don't last as long as printed books. Although braille is read with a light touch, the braille does get worn down over time.

Library books in particular are an unfortunate victim to this. Because so many different people are borrowing the books, they often get worn down much quicker. This can be because of new braille readers using a harsher touch when reading or it could be because of improper storage, either from the readers or from the library itself. It's less likely that somebody will notice when the braille is worn down.

The braille itself isn't the only concern. A lot of braille books are bound differently than printed books are and often use plastic for the bindings, which requires more care than the usual bindings of printed books. I've included an example of what a braille book may look like below.

[Image Description: A braille copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. It is open to a tactile map of Middle Earth. The binding is made of small, circular pieces of plastic, similar to a notebook of sorts. End ID.]

Now, this all isn't to say that he can't use braille books -- these are just some things to consider. And if you do choose to go in a different direction, may I suggest audio books?

Audio books have a wider availability than braille books do and are much less costly. There's also the added benefit of being able to take them pretty much everywhere with you, as long as you have one or two downloaded to your phone.

You could also go with having a balance of the two. Maybe your character uses audio books with his headphones or earbuds during the day and reads his braille books at home so he can give his ears a break from his headphones/earbuds.

Another option is large print books or e-books that allow you to adjust the font size, which could make it easier for your character to read them. There are also other strategies that he could use when reading regular printed books, such as covering an eye or using a bookmark to sort of box in the lines as he reads.

As one quick final note: Reading braille is actual reading! Braille is just another language with a different -- not lesser! -- method of reading it.

Hopefully some of this information helps! If you're interested in knowing more about the specifics of braille books, Blind In Mind's Braille Bookstore has a lot of great resources and their copy of The Fellowship of the Ring is the one I've been referencing.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

[genderqueerdykes]

I really really appreciate the posts about fat acceptance and stuff. I used to be pretty underweight but I've definitely gained weight (and muscle too I'm sure) on HRT, the way it sits/distrubuted on me is something that is hard to see sometimes and there's a lot of parental commentary about fat people that needs to be worked on.

hey, you're welcome! i'm glad you agree

gaining weight isn't always bad, in fact for many people, it can be an outright blessing. people can have a wide variety of conditions that can lead them to being chronically underweight, and putting on even a few pounds was seen as a huge accomplishment and a safety net. my best friend is this way

even if it's not required for one's health, putting on weight isn't inherently bad. every person's body has a range in which it attempts to naturally sit for their baseline weight. this will vary greatly from person to person based off of activity levels, hormone levels, genetics, individual dietary needs vs. dietary intake, digestive issues, eating disorders, allergies, food intolerance, neurodivergence, developmental disorders, and more.

the way i see it is it becomes very obvious to a person when their weight has actually come to negatively affect them. this will be marked in a decline in energy, feeling fatigued and malaise most of the time, headaches, difficulty getting out of bed, increased chronic pain including pain while standing or walking, breathing difficulties, difficulty walking/moving long distances for reasons not due to joint or connective tissue health, becoming pre/diabetic suddenly if one was not before, and/or other health complications that were not present before the amount of weight was gained

most fat, chubby, etc. people are sitting well within the healthy range for their body without realizing it. our bodies are great at telling us what they need it's just hard to listen when we're busy, exhausted, and/or neurodivergent. many people have a good idea of what their body needs but get talked or shamed out of doing what's right for them. parents, like you said, are especially uptight and strict about weight for seemingly no reason.

i've always been fat my whole life. once i reached my teen years i began to hover around the 300 lb range and that's where i've always been. my mom was fat and so was my dad, and both of their families. my mom projected so much of her fatphobia on to me it was unreal. she would critcize me any time i wanted a snack by asking "you're eating again?" and other dumb shit. children are growing and active, they need a lot of food, especially for good brain function (yes, our brains need fuel, revolutionary concept, i know)

i don't understand why parents desperately NEED their children to be physically attractive to them. can we talk about this? i know it's uncomfortable but this is a huge parental issue. i am SO tired of hearing parents go ON AND ON about how "beautiful" or "handsome" their children are. it's extremely creepy, there's no reason to focus on their appearance like that. some parents become SO distressed when their children are not conventionally attractive, as if it makes them less attractive by proxy. it's insanely creepy. a child's conventional beauty or lack there of should be of no concern to a parent- why do some parents obsess over this? it gives the child severe body image issues and it's not a good level of vanity to project on to a kid

anyway, it's okay to be fat, especially if you find you're not struggling with pain or mobility. some people will have pain and mobility issues no matter what weight they're at. everyone's different. someone's weight is their own concern and nobody else's, unless there is medical significance in which case it is between them and their medical team. not every fat person has health issues due to their weight, in fact, most do not. it's okay to let your body be the weight it wants to be

nobody should have to constantly feel like they have to be fighting their own biology just to look "more attractive". people are attractive when they look the most like their real, natural selves. it's way more flattering and it's better for the individual. don't expect other people to go through hell just to look "good". just let people be themselves. let people feel good, and feel good about themselves. worry about yourselves when it comes to appearance

anyway, thank you for the feedback, i really appreciate it! i will always be here for other fat folk because i've gone through many interesting situations with diet and health and my weight always sits around the 300 mark give or take 20 lbs in either direction. my lowest weight as an adult was 260 lbs. my highest was 360. muscle tissue plays a huge factor in this right now for me. i have clothes in my closet that range from literally Small all the way up to XXXL and they all fit me just fine. weight isn't as big of a deal as people think it is, it's a very neutral thing most of the time

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: whale shark

So I may have committed a cardinal sin last week because I didn't realize it was shark week and instead of a shark, I covered hagfish. This was clearly a terrible oversight and to make up for it, I'm going to talk about the biggest shark of all: the mighty whale shark.

(Image: a whale shark seen from the side. It is a very large shark with a flattened head and three ridges running down its side. The skin in grey and covered in white spots. Smaller sharks and remoras are swimming alongside it. End ID)

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are carpet sharks, meaning they are members of the order Orectolobiformes. The carpet sharks most people are familiar with are the wobbegongs, who are ventrally flattened sharks they typically stick near the seafloor, but Orectolobiformes is a pretty diverse clade containing a large variety of sharks with diverse body plans. Whale sharks are the only living member of the family Rhinocodontidae, making them effectively cousins of the wobbegongs. While there is only one living species of whale shark, we know of another few in the fossil record and there were likely more extinct species and relatives that we don't know about. Because shark skeletons are made of cartilage, they rarely fossilize, leaving only their teeth as fossils. Whale sharks have very tiny teeth and smaller things are less likely to fossilize than large things. Add in that fossilization is very rare and it's very possible there were whale sharks and other similar things in the past we will never know about because they never fossilized.

(Image: a whale shark seen from the front. Its mouth is open, very wide, and apparently toothless. End ID)

Whale sharks are the largest living sharks and the largest living animals that aren't whales. Whale sharks can reach an average adult size of 14.5 meters (48 ft) and 18,600 kg (41,000 lbs), with males being larger. The largest whale shark on record was measured to be 18.8 m (62 ft). Whale sharks have broad, flattened heads and unlike most sharks, their mouths are on the front of the head instead of beneath the snout. The mouth can be over 2 meters across in an adult and is lined with approximately 300 rows of tiny teeth. These teeth are vestigial and do not play a role in feeding. Instead, the shark uses a structure at the back of the mouth composed of 20 fleshy pads that are coated with a thin mesh and held in place with connective tissue. More on feeding below. Whale sharks are grey in color, with white bellies and white spots covering the body. Each whale shark has a unique pattern of spots that scientists can use for identification. The spots will reappear in areas where damaged skin has healed instead of being scarred over. Whale sharks also have some regenerative ability, being able to recover from major wounds and possibly regrow sections of lost fin. Each side of the body has three long ridges that may help with streamlining.

(Image: a whale shark seen form the front with its mouth closed. There are remoras attached to its underbelly and a group of small yellow fish with black stripes swimming near the mouth, possibly acting as cleaner fish. End ID)

Whale shark skin can be up to 15 cm thick and is covered with tiny, tooth-like scales called dermal denticles. Having tiny teeth where bony fish have scales is normal for sharks. What is not normal is having them on your eyes, but the whale shark does anyway. Let me repeat: whale sharks have teeth on their eyeballs. I like body horror and I'm creeped out by that. The eyes can be retracted into the head and these two adaptations are believed to protect the eyes from predators and parasites. Another adaptations the eyes (which, again, HAVE TEETH ON THEM) have is a mutated version of rhodopsin, the pigment the rod sells of the yes use to see. this mutation makes the eyes good at seeing blue light, but the rhodopsin becomes unstable in warm temperatures. In humans, this mutation leads to a degenerative eye condition that can result in blindness. Whale sharks have a solution, though. When in warm, shallow water, the pigment can be turned off to keep the eyes from degenerating. When the shark dives to deep water, the pigment is reactivated, granting the shark better vision as blue light is the most common in the deep sea.

(Image: a close-up of a whale shark eye. It is a small, black, lidless eyeball surrounded by gray skin. End ID)

While whale sharks are huge, they aren't hunters. They are one of three living species of filter-feeding shark, the others being the basking shark (which I covered previously) and the awesomely-named megamouth shark. The majority of a whale shark's diet consists of plankton: primarily copepods, krill, eggs and larvae, and small fish, squid, and jellyfish. The shark can feed either by ram feeding (swimming forward with the mouth open) or creating suction to draw water into the mouth. The mouth is shaped like a funnel and forces water through the filtration pads. The pads, which likely evolved from gill rakers, capture food particles, which are then swallowed as the water is forced out through the gills. The filtration pads are extremely efficient and resistant to being clogged up with debris, though whale sharks have been observed performing a coughing-like behavior that is speculated to help clean the pads. Whale sharks spend up to 8 hours a day near the surface of the ocean, feeding on an estimated 2.7 kg (6 lbs) of plankton per hour.

(Image: an artistic diagram of the feeding pads and gills of a whale shark and how water flows through the mouth and out the gills. Source: EmilyDamstra.com. End ID)

Whale sharks live in temperate and tropical oceans worldwide and can be found in both the open ocean and coastal regions. They are gentle giants who swim slowly and bask at the surface of the ocean, not threatening anything bigger than a sardine. While they spend a lot of time at the surface, whale sharks periodically dive in search of food. Most of these dives are less than 200 meters (660 ft) deep, but they will occasionally dive over 500 m (1,600 ft) deep. The deepest recorded dive reached 1,928 m (6,325 ft), the deepest recorded dive of any fish. Whale sharks are known to practice different feeding behavior based on available food in their region. There are two subpopulations of whale shark based on location: the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific populations. 75% of the whale shark population lives in the Indo-Pacific. Whale sharks seasonally migrate following warm waters and food and may also migrate to mate. Multiple places around the world host seasonal gatherings of whale shark, making them to best place to reliably see them.

(Image: a whale shark from the side, swimming with its mouth open. Other fish can be seen in the background. End ID)

Not much is known about Whale shark mating. It has only been seen a few times in Saint Helena Island in the Atlantic and off the coast of Australia. Mating likely occurs during the seasonal aggregations. Female whale sharks are believed to travel to regional pupping grounds to give birth, but where exactly these are is an open question as juvenile whale sharks are rarely seen. The youngest whale shark ever observed was discovered having been captured and tied to a stake on a beach in Pilar, the Philippines. It was measured at 38 cm (15 in) and was released after being measured. This discovery likely means there is a pupping ground in the area. Whale sharks are ovoviviparous, meaning their eggs hatch internally and the young are born live. Whale shark females are believed to be able to reserve sperm and impregnate themselves repeatedly between matings, rather than bearing all their young at once. It is not clear how long it takes whale sharks to mature or how long they can live, though some estimates put them at sexually mature at around 25 years old and with a maximum lifespan between 50 and 150 years. It is estimated that only 10% of whale sharks live long enough to reach sexual maturity. Adult whale sharks have no natural predators.

(Image: a baby whale shark that was rescued from a gill net in India. It looks like a smaller version of the adult, but with a proportionately larger head. A human (out of frame) is holding it just above the water. ENd ID)

Whale sharks are classified as endangered by the IUCN. They are threatened by fishing, poaching, bycatch, and boat strikes. Whale sharks are hunted for their skin, liver oil, and meat, though countries worldwide are increasingly regulating or banning whale shark hunting. Whale sharks also ingest large quantities of microplastics. The health effects of this are not understood currently. Whale sharks are kept in captivity in less than 20 aquariums worldwide. They need very large tanks and have special feeding requirements that makes it difficult to keep them healthy. Wild whale sharks pose no threat to humans though there have been reports of them ramming sport fishing boats after being provoked. In places where whale sharks seasonally aggregate, snorkeling or SCUBA diving alongside them has become a major ecotourism industry. Touching the sharks can hurt them and is illegal in most places. Some tourism agencies have been known to lure in young whale sharks by feeding them shrimp, something which is discouraged by naturalists as it can foster dependence on humans and potentially introduce dangerous chemicals to the sharks' diets.

(Image: a person in a pink swimsuit wearing goggles and a snorkel swimming next to a whale shark just beneath the surface of the water. Two other whale sharks are in the background. End ID)

[thegainingdesk]

I know you put on weight big guy. Are you excited or nervous for 3-0-0?

And what's your favourite American alt rock rock band in the 1990-2005 era?

I like Counting Crows.

I've said for a while that my goal is 280 lbs (20 stone) over the next couple of years, and then long term I'd let myself gradually get up to 300 by about 40 or so, but not really push myself for it. Hitting 19 stone has made me realise how close both weights are.

The idea of being 300 lbs is hot - I'll definitely be the biggest guy in my office and in all my friendship groups, but won't be so big that I shouldn't be able to carry on doing all the things I enjoy. I'm also really enjoying the way my frame is developing - a proper defined ball gut, big thighs, chest soft but not too big. I'm excited to see it develop.

I am a bit nervous about the rate I'm approaching 300 though, especially since I don't really feel like I'm pushing myself anymore - that "by about 40 or so" is looking like it might come a good 5 or more years early. Outgrowing clothes is getting annoying (I'm currently sat with my trousers unbuttoned because they're so tight and I haven't had a chance to go buy some 42s, there are some really nice shirts in my wardrobe which just aren't a prospect anymore, and my most recent suit buying venture was An Ordeal), I'm not a huge fan of the stretchmarks I'm getting on the underside of my gut, and to be honest I'm getting a little nervous about the prospect of overshooting 300. There's also the prospect of outgrowing stuff, which is hot to think about, but even the minor things I'm starting to outgrow already turn into a hassle in the moment.

Probably Neutral Milk Hotel. I'm quite into alt rock, but mainly British bands and I much prefer 80s over 90s.

[wickerfemme]

*mental checklist anon here*

DOUBLE back rolls? ✅✅✅

you're going to be a blimp soon and I'm waiting impatently for your report of "my 300 lbs life" cause girl you're eating like there's no tomorrow

OK, so, double back rolls only when I bend a little to the side. (I'm giving this caveat right now and at the same time realising that most women aren't so gainer-minded that they consider back rolls as 'not counting' unless they're a permanent feature when standing perfectly straight, but. I'm sure you get it.)

Anyway, only a touch over a hundred pounds to go now until I can give that report~