#we chonkin

[bearotonin-international]

Gobbler thinks it’s an awful lot of work being such a Fat Bear on Fat Bear Friday

[nikkilbook]

My grandparents had a long history of naming their dogs “Babe.” I’m mostly certain it was after the pig.

All the feeder goldfish we got around 2005ish were named after HP characters (except for my brother who was determined to name his Sparky). Dumbledore survived the longest, only to die while we away were at a family reunion. Coincidently, my dad finished reading Book 6 to us on that trip, and we came back to find that good ol’ Dumble-fish had yeeted himself from the tank and fallen about 4 feet to the floor.

One of the first stray cats we tried to adopt back in 2012ish was named Rollo. We’d tell people it was Rolo, like the chocolate/caramel candies, but it was actually supposed to be the baby bank vole from MATTIMEO, one of the Redwall books.

The first cat we SUCCESSFULLY adopted was temporarily named Baby Volstagg, because she was VERY ROUND, but I’d briefly read like, a page of whichever Percy Jackson book comes after Mark of Athena when my sister was reading it, and there was something about a hundred-handed one named Bob and he had a little kitten named Bob as well, and so I suggested Bob and it stuck. She is mostly called Robert, Roberto, or Bobbity now.

One of the spawn of Bob was originally called Chill/“The Chill One”, but at some point my siblings were watching the FairyTail anime in Japanese and there’s a cat-creature called Carla (ENG)/“Shararu” (JAP). It came out sounding something like “Chalalou” courtesy of the R/L thing, which is I think how we technically spell it, and everyone thought it was fun-sounding so she got a new name. It has of course evolved further, and now she is Chalalou, Chapalou, Shapoopie, Shapoopus, and Shoopus. Once, when Sister 2 (@demisexualhemidemisemiquaver) had to put down her name on an apartment thing, she went the COWARD’S WAY OUT and just went with “Lou.”

Other such-named creatures in the household include Gawain, TW (Trespassers William), Simba, Mr Noodle, and Papyrus.

Also, the service dog I’m saving up for is gonna be named Baymax, so there’s that.

Put in the tags please if you answered yes lets have fun with this

For example my childhood dog was named Cher after the singer and yes she had a brother named Sunny

[sometimesgaining]

Oh lord we chonkin

[halflingkima]

Try a Chapter Test

idk what to read next so i'm gonna read the first bits from my TBR. How do i read a first chapter of the graphic novels? idk but we're gonna find out!

Cleat Cute: professional women's soccer rivals to lovers romcom

Writing style not promising. Not bad, just feels a little forced, often reminds me of the process of reading. Not too much character yet, but there is inciting action. It does seem like it's a one has the other's poster on her wall situation so i've got all my fingers crossed for a gender-bend roy/jamie au style thing. (though unfortunately neither is like the 'veteran' player, i think) Predicted: ⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

2. Dark Tides: the sequel to a fight for a pirate throne

This author always does start out strong. Writing style compelling, just mysterious enough to keep you reading. I'm wondering if this strange new character is the boy from Lorelei's village that joined the navy, and if this is gonna involve some kinda love triangle. which would be so tedious. Predicted: ⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️⭐️ (<- generous)

3. A Taste of Gold and Iron: Indian-inspired fantasy (bodyguard?) romance

First chapter is a solid 30 pages and I am not reading all that; also no map or any kind of context before jumping in, which I don't trust but do appreciate. Mostly just a limited narrative of where we enter the story, but it was interesting and a lotta world-building and set dressing was done very quickly. looking forward to this one. Predicted: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4. Land of Sons: post-apocalyptic father and two sons trying to survive

This was darker than i, for some reason, expected. the art style is a little hard for my eyes to parse, and the relationship between the three characters is.. bad. i had hoped for a little love-in-dark-times vibe. interested to see where it goes though Predicted: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️

5. Seek You: an exploration of loneliness in sequential art

i just read the author's note, but turns out this one does have chapters. i love the art style, and the tone of the writing is immediately evocative. rly looking forward to this one, but still afraid it'll stomp all over me Predicted: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

6. Rusty Brown: an attempt to encapsulate the entire scope of human experience into a single graphic novel

i am a little entertained by the dual narrative – a main narrative runs through the majority of the page while a secondary narrative is in tiny frames at the bottom – and I expect it'll get more complex as i go. so far, though, the actual content sorta sucks. general 'average family 80s family' struggles (unhappy marriages, bullied fat kid, moving in with grandparents) and while there's nothing wrong with the stories, i do think it's gonna be a bit of a depressing read for a while if not the whole (chonkin') thing Predicted: ⭐️⭐️ Finished: ⭐️

[bearotonin-international]

747 Bear Force One!!!!

747 on the bear cam this evening. Looking massive.

[stopfunkinwmyheart]

when we don't have treats sometimes I give the dogs a cracker w peanut butter. every single time koda sticks it to the roof of her mouth and eats it for 5 minutes, just chonkin the whole time. today I woke up and she was either dreaming of that or drinking water because I s2g it was like she was drinking right next to my ear.

[cmishwrites]

update and rambling thoughts at 2am thingy;

last week we had a bit of a family emergency, and brain went into survival mode, and I'm still dealing with the fallout(hehe fallout) from it. Because of that, I'm still arguing with the fo4 fanfic. I think it may be perfectionism and just plain overthinking. There's something that is not sitting right. I've read and reread it and despite it being satisfactory there's something about it that isn't quite right. Which led me to this thought; I write novels, big chonkin epic stories. For some reason I'm struggling with the fanfic(s) and I think part of it is that I tend to drag things out a bit (look at the Union intro, 5k for the intro!!). And for some reason brain is thinking fanfic = not so complicated/not so long. I know that's wrong (there's one on my to read list that is at over 700k). But brain insists I'm making it too complicated and the scenes/sections too long. So I'm fighting with it, trying to convince self to just write the damn story, but self is a stubborn bitch and is resisting that. So, that said, the Union story IS coming along, but it's going slower than the !new!shiny! HFW fanfic. But it will be put up when I feel it's ready to be put up (or when I get fed up at it hanging over my head).

[scatterpatter]

the little purple creature! a lovely lad!

SNUMBUS MY BELOVED

[ichayalovesyou]

THE BIG VULCAN BIOLOGY POST (aka Vulcan is a Hell Planet)

DISCLAIMER: I am not a biologist, astrophysicist, neurologist, animal psychologist or literally anything that would qualify me to talk about this with 100% confidence. This is the result of dozens of headcanons and obsessive deep dive research. I don’t want this post to be three miles long, so after I address the planetary stuff I will oblige y’all with a Read More.

Adsfasdkfjhaslkdfh I’ve been working on this post for almost a month SO HERE WE GO!

First of all, Vulcan (aka T’Khasi) is a HELL PLANET, which is part of the reason they’re so badass, I say this for the following reasons:

No moon(s) (natural satellites)

Sodium (Salt) is so rare on the planet that Vulcan’s oceans are freshwater

It’s a “Super-Earth” (as in big chonkin’ planet of similar composition to earth in the “goldilocks region”)

Let’s do this.

“Vulcan has no moon Ms. Uhura.”

-Spock, The Man Trap

Tons of things change about our planet if there was no moon:

Much darker nights (no moonlight)

Much lower sea levels since there is no gravity from the moon to pull it upward.

Lower and weaker tides because the water is pulled by the sun instead of the moon, and it depends on how large the Vulcan solar system’s sun is for how big the waves are.

Stronger winds from faster planet rotation.

Depending on whether the axis of the planet would straighten or tilt further without the moon’s pull, combined with the faster rotation would lead to more severe seasons (strong tilt) or no seasons at all (no tilt)

The first factor may lead to Vulcan eyes being very catlike even if they aren’t nocturnal (I think they’re crepesucular but we’ll get into that later). Which given the likely nature of their blood and their herbivorous eating habits they probably aren’t. The sky would still be so dark that our human eyes couldn’t even see our hands in front of us, being blind when the sun goes down could be a death sentence. Alternatively, if they didn’t develop strong night vision that may be one of the reasons why they have such strong senses of hearing.

The stronger winds, faster rotation, and stronger (or nonexistent) seasons come from the lack of resistance and friction that stronger tides and the moon’s pull create on our planet. I suspect that Vulcan is larger, or at least denser than Earth, but I’ve been informed that according to the TMP novelization that it does rotate faster. I also think that Vulcan’s tilt is on the more extreme end to get the hostile extremes like storms and heat that we see on Vulcan.

If you look at this image of Vulcan, water covers way less of the planet’s surface than Earth. I don’t think this is necessarily because Vulcan has less water, but that it isn’t spread as far because of the lack of moon, and the fact that the oceans are freshwater, I’ll get into that shortly.

“My ancestors spawned from a different ocean than yours.”

-Spock, The Man Trap

In the Star Trek: The Original Series (third) pilot The Man Trap, there is a creature that kills its victims by draining their bodies completely of salt. Spock encounters the creature but does not die, implying his (and Vulcans overall) body contains little to no salt. His justification is that his species did not evolve from a salinized ocean.

What does it mean to have oceans with no salt?

This has to mean that sodium is a very rare mineral on Vulcan, as the reason our oceans are so salinized is due to erosion of minerals by rainfall, carried from river to ocean. Salt in the ocean is also generated by submarine volcanic activity, which means either that the volcanoes on Vulcan (which we definitely know exist) somehow don’t produce salt, or the vast majority of the submarine volcanoes have been inactive for millions if not billions of years. The active volcanoes on Vulcan must be very far inland and/or Vulcan has almost no rivers, which given how hot the planet is, wouldn’t actually be too much of a stretch of the imagination.

Which means every single lifeform on T’Khasi, including Vulcans, evolved biosystems that exist without (or with very little) salt content. Any salt that exists would likely be deep beneath the planet’s surface, and within volcanoes.

No saltwater has a ton of consequences:

Plants (like underwater algae) are rarer and may not photosynthesize the same way Earth plants do, meaning less oxygen and more carbon dioxide, which means more greenhouse effect, which means higher temperatures.

The lack of salt would also mean less diverse plant life (at least as humans know it) and given the lack of visible rivers and vast swaths of desert on Vulcan, we can safely say vegetation must be hardier and infrequent.

Lower sea levels as the oceans would have lower density due to lack of salt.

Little to no water convection, which salt is crucial for on Earth. Which means warm ocean water doesn’t move to cold regions and vice versa. Creating extremes, the equator being obscenely hot, and polar waters freezing at the poles more extensively.

Lack of convection means more frequent and stronger storms like hurricanes.

If you thought the lack of a moon made Vulcan inhospitable, compound it with the low sodium factor and you’ve got a planet of even more severe extremes than before. The heat, and the decrease of plant diversity definitely explain why the vast majority of Vulcan is rocky desert, even being near the water poses more extreme dangers than it would on earth due to the increased frequency of hurricanes.

“Mr. Spock is much stronger than an ordinary human being.”

-Kirk, This Side of Paradise

I am almost 100% sure that Vulcan is either bigger or denser than Earth. Which would explain why Vulcans are so much stronger than Humans and other species that exist on similar gravity worlds.

Effects of a high-gravity planet or “Super-Earth” include:

Everything is shorter or has very strong foundations, plants, animals, structures, and people.

More “Armageddon” class asteroids would hit the planet (like the one that killed the dinosaurs and created the Gulf of Mexico)

Larger liquid mantle under the planet’s surface, higher pressure under the surface as well.

Weaker magnetic field due to lack of convection in the planet’s core (not to be confused with the mantle interacting with the planet’s crust). Which means a weaker atmosphere, lower magnetism in surface metals, and increased vulnerability to solar flares.

More volcanically and seismically active due the the increase in the mantle’s size and generated heat, more earthquakes, and more volcanic eruptions.

Would have to have a smaller sun but be closer in orbit to it than earth.

Extremely deep oceans, potentially with water under so much pressure at the bottom that it becomes solid like ice. Luckily Vulcan is not an ocean world, because the pressure would block the planet’s core from interacting with the atmosphere, which would prevent life as we know it from happening.

There is plenty of evidence for this on so many levels. We never see any plant life similar to trees on Vulcan. Nor animals significantly larger than Vulcans, the ones that are bigger are much more muscular. Vulcan’s sky is more red than blue because of the lack of oxygen molecules for the light from the sun to filter as blue. I actually headcanon that Spock is unusually tall for a Vulcan because of his human heritage (Leonard Nimoy was around 6ft tall) , and may have had heart and muscle problems in his teens and early adulthood while on Vulcan.

Perhaps Vulcans are the result of many more extinction level events than we are, contributing to their hardiness. Perhaps they are, evolutionarily, not too much older than we are, and had more incentive to develop extraterrestrial technology than we have, so that they could repel Armageddon Class meteors and defend their planet against Solar Flares? Space travel being born out of self-preservation rather than curiosity. Which would absolutely account for their attitudes in the beginning of Star Trek: Enterprise.

It could be that Vulcans still maintain a semi-nomadic lifestyle even today because their planet is so incredibly volatile. Unsentimental and utilitarian in anything less than the most sacred of architecture long before they adopted the teachings of Surak. Their own survival more valuable than any structure that would inevitably be damaged or destroyed by their planet’s harsh environment.

In summary, Vulcan is a Nightmare Planet because:

So, so many much natural disasters, like, so many, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, twisters, just, so many more than Earth.

Water is relegated to specific locations in the world rather than spread across it due to lack of flow and lower sea levels.

Extreme temperature changes, intense heat, intense cold, hard to breathe, stronger gravity.

Due to the planet’s hostility, there is a smaller diversity of life than we have here on earth, which means fewer and hardier food sources that, like Vulcans, are very difficult to kill.

So… How do they handle it? What features have they developed to adapt and thrive in such an inhospitable place?

First thing is first, lets talk about

BLOOD

“My hemoglobin is based on copper, not iron.”

-Spock, Obsession

Funny thing is Spock, it’s not hemoglobin at all! It’s hemocyanin! In fact, there are earth animals that have it, among them Horseshoe Crabs, crustaceans, mollusks and spiders!

Hemocyanin is blue when it hasn’t been exposed to oxygen, and blue-green when it has, according to some sources on Vulcans their blood is orangey red when unexposed to air and that’s why they have pink lips and so on, but we can brush that off as chemical variation within their hemocyanin. Better yet, maybe it’s trendy for Vulcans to wear pink lipstick nowadays, ‘cause Surak knows how horny Humans and Vulcans are for each other XD! Anyway!

Hemocyanin does quite a few things that our blood can’t, it’s uniquely built for high pressure, low oxygen environments, as well as endure temperature extremes like cold (not unlike nights on their planet). Not only that, but it coagulates and clots WAY faster than our blood. Which means wounds seal themselves off from harmful bacteria and stop bleeding much faster than hemoglobin. Pair that with the Vulcan ability to enter a healing torpor, no wonder Spock keeps surviving environments and wounds that would definitely have killed a human.

Now, the animals I listed don’t have veins, which for us carry oxygen around via hemoglobin, so it’s possible that the same difference that causes Vulcan blood to be a coppery orange-red beneath the skin, is the same reason they have veins. Allowing them to look more like us and lack the exoskeletons and deep ocean delving that their earth blood cousins have.

“The ship’s temperature is increasingly uncomfortable for me. I’ve adjusted the environment in my quarters to 125 degrees.”

-(Elderly) Spock, The Deadly Years

Oh goodie, the Vulcan blood temperature discourse has arrived, the age old question, are Vulcans warm-blooded or cold-blooded? The answer to this question is

YES

I am firmly in the small (but hopefully growing) camp Vulcans Are Heterothermic. Among the earth animals we know to be heterothermic are bumblebees, several species of bats, the opah fish, and the arctic ground squirrel. Of all these animals, despite the opposite temperature intensity of Vulcan’s environment, I’m basing how Vulcans function on the last one, the arctic squirrel.

Which means they can deliberately control their body temperature in accordance to the needs of their survival. I imagine, just as arctic ground squirrels can drop their body below zero as needed (entering what is called a “daily torpor”) Vulcans can do the same. In turn, they could possibly skyrocket their bodies to temperatures that would be a lethal fever for humans. Which makes both McCoy’s “nonexistent Vulcan metabolism” comments in various episodes, as well as describing his blood as “ice water” make sense. As well as Spock being able to handle the heightened body temperature caused by Henoch in “Return to Tomorrow”. It also explains why Spock was in far better shape than Bones in the freezing temperatures of the planet from “All Our Yesterdays”.

However, like arctic squirrel newborns, they start out as ectothermic (cold-blooded) which lends itself to the Vulcan infants needing even more skin to skin to survive than humans theory by @acesexualspock. Being born cold blooded would prevent them from immediately dying the second they were exposed to the dangerous extremes of Vulcan’s heat. I also think they slowly lose the ability to control their metabolic rate as they grow older, slowing down dramatically as they age, which is why Spock gets increasingly colder as he ages rapidly in “The Deadly Years”.

“The brightness of the Vulcan sun has caused the development of an inner eyelid.”

-Spock, Operation: Annihilate

I wanna thank @tribbleland for inspiring this part in particular.

I want to offer a special congratulations to furries people who let their love for anthro-cats bleed into their love for Vulcans, turns out Vulcans are very catlike! Like our feline Terran friends, Vulcans have what is called a Nicitating Membrane. It’s functions that would serve Vulcans well in their desert home include spreading moisture across the eye, protect the eye from small water and small debris (like sand for example), as well as protecting the eye from ultraviolet radiation, which is more or less what Spock said in that episode. Other animals that have Nicitating Membranes aside from felines is actually the majority of the animal kingdom, and primates (like us) are the exception and not the rule. I also subscribe to the idea that Vulcans have other desert dweller features like thick hair and eyelashes, sealable nostrils, big feet, a crepuscular sleep cycle (avoiding extreme midnight and midday temperatures), and a tough as nails digestive system!

As an added bonus fact since this section is pretty short: It makes purrfect sense for Vulcans to purr! In cats purring is an emotional regulator when they are angry or scared (Vulcans are ALL about regulating their emotions) as well as purring when they are happy. It is also a mechanism for healing themselves, their kittens, and their owners, the frequency at which cats purr (25-140 Hz) cover the same frequencies that are therapeutic for bone growth and fracture healing, pain relief, swelling reduction, wound healing, muscle growth and repair, tendon repair, and mobility of joints. I’m over here getting emotional about the mental image of like, Spock or Tuvok or smth sitting next to a wounded crewmember and just like, purring with a completely straight face and that is soft and just a little funny and I am emotionally compromised.

“And are it’s natives predatory?” “Not generally, but there have been exceptions.”

-Spock to Trelaine, The Squire of Gothos

Surprise! This isn’t just going to be about Vulcan dietary needs, it’s gonna be about animal behaviors and self-domestication as well! I was trying to think of herbivores that are capable of eating meat, and then this idea hit me like a bomb going of in my head-

Vulcans are like Hippos!

I don’t mean I think they used to be hippo-like (visually anyway) somewhere along the evolutionary line. I mean that they were probably big, extremely aggressive, pack roaming herbivores that are able to eat carrion when food is scarce. Have you ever seen a video of a group of Hippos smashing an alligator to smithereens? They kill more humans than any solitary predator on the African continent! What about a murder of crows killing a cat that injured one of them, or a group of bison saving a calf from a lion?! Herbivores can be insanely aggressive while still being social, plant-eating animals.

With that in mind, let’s talk about self-domestication! This is something that we humans (and to an extent, cats too) did way back in our biology according to some studies, we bred out aggression and bred in cooperativeness and curiosity. Cats, while partially domesticated by us, started looking for mates that were more sociable so that their offspring could exist closer to humans (and their food) as well as to tolerate other cats. While I do think Vulcans self-domesticated to a degree, I do not think they were able to do so nearly to the same extent as humans or our deliberately domesticated companions. Vulcan is a harsh, violent, and unforgiving planet, even more so than Earth, if Vulcans were naturally as friendly and curious as we Humans are now, they would not have survived as a species.

I believe this is why their emotions are so primal and strong, and things like Pon Farr and their unusually high wariness of the new and unexpected still exist so strongly. How do they live together in such high numbers and develop a functional society? They developed other means of coping as a work-around the impracticality of decreasing aggression!

“Call it a deep understanding of the way things happen to Vulcans.”

-Spock, The Immunity Syndrome

So, how do you have a species as aggressive, unforgiving, and frighteningly strong as Vulcans keep from completely destroying itself (aside from Surak’s teachings)? You take the empathy that humans already have, turn it up to 11, and tack on every evolutionary possibility to increase it. We already know how the Earth comparisons for Vulcan empathy: the extreme vitality of touch for the survival and emotional stability, cats purring to heal each other and themselves (and regulate emotions), nonverbal communication, the ancestral instincts of an infant animal being able to walk days after its born. What if we had all of these traits in remarkable spades, Vulcans certainly seem to! (Be prepared, the science starts getting a little squidgy because there are no real world comparisons and neurology research is very jargon heavy)

Electricity is a fundamental part of the biology of nearly all living things, it allows synapses to fire, regulates our internal organs, and gives us our senses of touch and movement. Skin to skin is so incredibly vital to the survival of infants, and the emotional stability for adults, that needing any more touch could be impractical and counterintuitive. So what if we got more from less? What if our sense of touch, and the acuteness of being able to read the emotions of others from body language and touch manifested as a form of what looks like from an outsider’s perspective, telepathy!

Now what if the radius of the sensation of touch could be extended much farther, say being able to sense someone to the same intensity I described in the last paragraph, like, through a wall or from across a room? What if you could connect to other lifeforms with the same ability like a chain circuit that could connect a whole species together in one giant circuitboard? I just described what Vulcans call the kwar’ma’khon, the telepathic energy that connects all Vulcans to each other!

Imagine having this same intense telepathic connection to someone for an extended period of time, like a t’hy’la or Bond Mate. What if you had a relatively easy to master non-lethal attack against other members of your species, that comes to you easily due to your intrinsic understanding of nerves and touch, like the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. In turn, what if, through the intensity of this connection you could transfer everything you knew and saw and felt to another person in the event of your death. That way, if you survived the harshness of your world without dying violently or unexpectedly, you could deliberately pass on that knowledge and those instincts to your next of kin, like the Katra. (thanks @distractedducky @spacedancer1701 & @find-me-in-outer-space)

Now, that’s A LOT of empathy on top of A LOT of aggression, if you don’t have a work around for any of these, as a species you’d be rendered a complete emotional wreck pretty much 24/7 (or whatever the time cycles for Vulcan are). Which is where @ineffablebuddies theory that Vulcans can control, or at least mitigate their incredibly strong emotional reactions the same way they control their nervous system and metabolic rate. Which is how they are able to be touch telepathic, able to enter a torpor at will, and be heterothermic in the first place. The only reason Vulcans come off as unemotional to us is because we simply do not see and feel the way that they can. Unlike us, because of their ability to control their own internal chemistry, if they follow Surak’s teachings and/or Syrranite ideology, they can take that emotional regulation to the extreme.

(BIG EXHALE) Congratulations on getting through this insanely long post! I hope you enjoyed it, if you want sources on any of my non-tumblr post research just let me know in the notes. LLAP! 💚🖖🏻💚

[bearotonin-international]

Holly’s got CHONK

Happy Fat Bear Friday from one chonkin beast to another

[mersonwritesstuff]

Waifu submission: uhhhhhhh, super chonkin' Makoto Kino

She's made a batch of cupcakes just for this occasion. There's a lot of frosting on them, but it's warranted, as there's also a good amount of flavor in the cake part, too. Surprisingly, though, you're not bombed with sugar.

"Do you like it? I've been trying to perfect a recipe for this."

And it shows, honestly. Makoto's blubbery body takes up most of the couch, leaving very little room for you. She reaches for the remote, and turns on her streaming.

"I would have asked you out to the movie theater, but I figured I should show you one of my favorites, first. I've showed it to a couple other people I've dated, and they've said it's cheesy. But you're funny, so I'll let you snark on it if you're inclined to do so."

She finds the film, an old romantic comedy from the 80s. Due to how much space she takes up, you're pretty much forced to lean on her, but at least her flabby body makes for a comfortable cushion. You may even feel inclined to lie by her side, using her as a pillow.

“So what’s your favorite movie? Perhaps we can watch that next.” She smiles lightly, snuggling up to you in the process.

You’re not sure if the warmth you’re feeling comes from the fat on her body, or if you just feel warm inside, but who says it can’t be both?

[bearotonin-international]

Awwww yeah he ready!!

Today’s bear is 775 Lefty. He’s an old-timer but when he sees fish jumping, he gets so excited that he does a wiggle. Every time. I love him so much. [ID: a large brown bear with a scar on his hip stands at the edge of a waterfall, wiggling his whole body as he peers over the edge.]

[buttspagghetti]

alright y’all, i’ve been too busy for tumblr being a working man in college and all but the time has come for me to flex on you hoes

I started testosteroni and cheese january 2018 and got my top surgery done may 2019

i was a big chonkin boy for a hot minute weighing in the left corner at 293lbs. in october 2018 i wanted to drop weight for my top surgery and for general health and happiness and started cutting carbs and lifting more with a pal and got down to 240 by top surgery

i healed up and got my diet back together after depression eating during recovery and got back in the gym a few months later and kept losing weight till i was down to 183 by october of 2019, totaling 110lbs in a year

i’ve been keeping the weight off and decided i wanna compete at the iatbp powerlifting meet in atlanta in october but corona’s throwing things off a bit but that doesn’t mean we can’t bounce back from it.

i’m trying to stay positive and remember that progress isn’t linear and that bumps in the road are survivable and i want y’all to remember that too. routines being disrupted throw everyone off but that doesn’t negate the success you’ve already had or the success that’s to come. stay strong my homies, we’re all in this together.

[foiblepnoteworthy]

[ID (fuck i dont want to do an image description of this its chonkin’)

I have drawn what I believe to be all of @muffinlance ‘s Zukos and their affiliated pets. If I've missed one (again) I will cry. 

some parts are shaded and some aren’t. it generally depends on whether or not the thing is textured and also if I want to.

Okay so going roughly left to right:

We got tts Zuko in his regal fancy robes taking a nap tucked into Appa’s arm and covered in turtleducks, because his Zuko really deserves to have nice things, esp post ch14

Atop Appa’s head is Lil’ Zuko in his teeny tiny imperialist armour holding onto a plushie Appa that looks as fluffy as the original thing hopefully. On his head is Momo, swiping at Hawky/Fire Flake, who also wants to be on Zuko’s head.

Appa is asleep and ignoring all of this.

Just in front of Appa a baby Strawberry Daichi the Polar Bear Goose is sleeping all sprawled out. Her neck is unsettlingly long according to my friends. She is roughly the size of an ordinary goose at this stage. I just remembered that I meant to make her pink with the blood of her enemies (apparently some birds to this???) but I forgot and cba fixing that. She does not belong to any particular Zuko here because she belongs to no man and also does not have any specific Muffinlance!Zuko attachment to my knowledge.

Leaning on Appa is caps Zuko, staring at Sushi the catopus with undisguised delight. He, like Lil’ Zuko, is in his imperialism armour. 

Further along, Salvage Zuko and adnibss Zuko are arguing about who has the worse outfit. Salvage Zuko is in full water tribe regalia, complete with blue hair ribbon (this was drawn before chapter 8 so the ponytail remains). Seal Jerky sits by his side, staring at Spring Roll and three pygmy pumas, who accompany the other Zuko. adnibss Zuko is in guard uniform, including the hat. He is holding one of the pygmy pumas, and wins the argument in who has the worst outfit.

Floating a bit above them is avatar Zuko, in season 3 punk emo rebel phase Zuko outfit, including the nice hair. He is holding a single turtleduck. 

Behind all of them, stretching from one side of the page to the other is scaled over Zuko in his dragon form. I made him a dark red because if he was black I would have to shade him and I cba with that. He doesn’t have a pet because he doesn’t have a pet, but now I kinda want him to have strawberry daichi for the sheer chaos those two would create together (y’all know who the scary one is in that duo anyway) and now I've gone off topic.

There is no background, because I have no idea what that would be.]

Oof that took forever. So y’all already know how I found the time to finish off this beast, which I've been chipping away at for the last month or so. It still doesn't feel all that finished, but it’s finished enough for now. I had to make some changes to the original drawing because I forgot scaled over and some of the linework and placement of the Zukos was kinda ropey there. overall p pleased with how this turned out.

[stilitana]

i was tagged by @scarlok (thanks for making me examine my reading priorities i. have a problem with that): 10 books I plan on reading this year

Subcortical by Lee Conell...This got recommended to me by a prof and the stories sound bonkers so I think it’ll make for great fun reading between longer things.

Our Lady of the Flowers...I nearly finished this but it’s been so long I’ll probably just start over...or just read the thief’s journal again, it’s been long enough to warrant revisiting, see how different things look

The Brothers Karamazov...I started this three years ago and it just didn’t deserve to be read with limited attention so i kept putting off finishing it but i just have to make the time...will not be starting over though lmao...will resist the temptation to just read Demons again instead

Moscow to the End of the Line...I’ll read this or the sequel to life and extraordinary adventures of ivan chonkin if i can find it in english...it will bring me back to happy times :,)

Stone Butch Blues...it’s about time and i have to start somewhere

The Once and Future King...this is the favorite book of my favorite person ever (high school librarian who let me and my gf cut class and loiter at her desk) so this one’s for u miss e

The Swan Book by Alexis Wright...i’ve been wanting to read this for a really long time and i had a hard time with it the first time i tried but now i’m ready

station eleven...this got a lot of press when it first came out and i was like eh whatever but lately i’ve been hearing a resurgence of recommendations so mayhaps. im intrigued by the dual utopia/dystopia i hear is going on.

here we are in paradise...i really like tony earley so far, he’s a lot of what i used to like in other authors without the things that ruined them for me. idk i’m kind of sick of all this macho man southern literature i have a huge backlog of to read thru but at the same time like i do enjoy it but i feel like the things i enjoy in it could be articulated differently by someone else without the parts that are repulsive or limited or designed to keep me out. where can i find the joy i get from his campy wrestling story and all the fishing stories and the silly put-on masculinity without the toxicity. blah

ceremony by leslie marmon selko...another recommendation

this was actually really hard to do because rn i am fighting a strong urge to go back to familiar stories that i love. all i want is to reread o’connor and red cavalry and barthelme and even...eugh...padgett powelll...chuck palahniuk...douglas adams...my really ratty paperbacks that used to go with me everywhere on the bus everyday and on long trips...the stuff that used to feel so fresh and exciting that is now sort of stale but welcoming rn...hrm.

feel free to do this and say i tagged u, i’d like to see your lists:) and i would love recommendations if anyone has any!! i would really like to read some more wlw lit...like lesbian and gender stuff...i just don’t know where to start and I’ve always had a really hard time finding good books to read about this...part of that is the erm hot flash of shame and fear I get when I seek it out but like time to get over that...and if it doesn’t feel right then it’s like. very painful to read. also wacky fiction and fun sci fi. i need to read the third becky chambers still. yup

[sheensdreams]

Valery, what is your favorite book?

It was always difficult to come across legitimately published texts that interested me. Of course, I’ve read a plethora of scientific tomes but seldom got the opportunity to read fiction and poetry, which is what I loved the most. When I was younger, I was part of a samizdat group. I never reproduced the texts myself, but I was a recipient of some titles. Many of them were enjoyable enough, but they didn’t hold the same gravitas as if they were traditionally published. But, a title that remained in my mind is Vladimir Voinovich's The Life and the Unusual Adventures of Soldier Ivan Chonkin. I always wanted to read The Lord of The Rings but never got a chance to do that as the version permitted to be published was abridged and I didn’t much want to read half of a story.  My main love of samizdat was for the poetry that was circulated around us. We primarily had access to silver age poetry, but there were some independently written, more modern pieces in there too.  To answer your question properly, I can’t say that I have a favourite book. Unfortunately I’ve been very deprived in literature! But I devoured anything I could, but nothing I particularly loved.