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Man, when I was like 16 I got so sick of being made fun of for being the fat kid that I took an axe down inna woods, chopped down a tree, and started doing log-lifts all the time. I got strong as fuck, but I didn’t lose no weight. I actually got bigger.
Same thing happened when I got into fighting. I got even stronger, and I got *fast*, man, and nimble, like a cat. Still chubby.
Body-building culture is a bunch of crap, my dude. Functional muscle is not necessarily toned or lean. You can be swole as hell and still be heavy. And that’s cool.
Embrace your inner barbarian. And when fatphobic little gym twinks try to body shame you, you should DESTROY THEM with your MIGHTY AXE
You know, I train with (martial arts) a bunch of dudes, and a few bodybuilders have showed up over the years.
And every damn one of those huge shredded motherfuckers has the endurance of a fucking newborn puppy. Fifteen minutes into warmups and they’re panting for air like like they’re about to die. I’ve sparred them and every one of them telegraphs their moves about two weeks in advance, and are slower than my dead grandpa because their huge useless muscles get in the damn way.
Now. I also work with a couple of guys who are not weightlifters. They do, however, do very physical jobs and are Big Dudes. Picture this sort of build.
No abs to speak of, a bit of a tummy, and those motherfuckers can pick up one of the weightlifters and throw them.
And they’re fast. Like, unfair fast.
Bodybuilding culture is bullshit. Embrace your status as a giant barbarian and if anyone gives you crap throw them off a mountain.
It's not about doing well... That's no fun. It's much more enjoyable to Watch someone who tries and tries, causes drama and chaos, and still fails... That's why he loves his canary :)
Both the Chenahyeigi and Wardi languages are derived from peoples who have been pastoralists for millennia, and both have an absolute ton of words for livestock coloration.
Both languages have had at least some mutual influence for about a thousand years (to varying extents by dialect, depending on geography/trade connection) so you'll see similar or identical words crop up here and there.
THE WORDS:
Hneya - [hne:ʝɑ] or [hne:jɑ] (whether the ʝ sound is retained in speech and to what extent varies by dialect)
Straightforwardly refers to bright reddish-orange color, but is mostly used for animals rather than other orangeish things. The word Was probably influenced by an older form of the Wardi 'reyla', and absorbed with the introduction of orange colored cattle. It may have been merged with the Chenahyeigi '(h)ne', which is the root of several red color-related terms.
Reyla - [rejlɑ]
This is a Wardi word for most reddish-orange hues in general. When applied to livestock, it refers to solid orange coats without spotting/masks/notable countershading.
Fels akhri - [fels] [ɑ:khɾi]
Translates readily as 'storm cloud' (the 'storm' here specifies thunderstorms). When applied to livestock, it describes fur that is rich dark blue-gray with white guard hairs.
Aganne - [ɑgɑ:ne]
This doesn't actually translate to 'night sea' in a straightforward manner, but as a color word it's poetically associated with dark seas, at night or in storms. When used for livestock, it describes this coloration exclusively.
Woud et lleng - [woʊd] [ɛt] [ɬeŋk]
Woud is the word for rich moist soil specifically, lleng refers to laterite and its association with iron deposits. This phrase is used to describe livestock with dark brown heads and and orange-brown bodies.
Tsipanibe - [t͡sipɑnibe]
This would be more literally translated as 'ochred'. Many Wardi words with the -ibe stem from verbs or nouns modified to indicate that the subject matter has 'received' an action or concept. (Examples of such words are long-established linguistically, you can't just add '-ibe' to any noun or verb). This one takes the root 'tsipan' (ochre) and applies it to the subject matter (cattle coloration).
Livestock with a dark brown or black head and orange-brown body are given this description, the idea being that their bodies look like they've been painted in ochre. This word is extremely rare outside of this context (you would usually just say the full 'ochre-painted' to convey this idea for other things)
Drengh yipeg - [dɾeŋg(h) yɪpɛ:g]
This is pretty straightforwardly 'little moon'. Yipeg comes from the same root as the Wardi 'hippe' for 'small', while drengh refers to the appearance of the moons in the sky (rather than the gods they embody). It's used to describe small round white blaze marks.
Ipalen hamita - [ipɑlɛn (h)ɑmitə]
Straightforwardly 'star marked', used for small round white blaze marks. Wardi actually does have a 'moon marked' (ipalen amit) to describe round white blazes that entirely cover the animal's forehead.
Brinyavir - [bɾi:nʝɑvir] (ʝ is retained for this word in most dialects)
This one is not directly translatable, 'celestial' or 'heavenly' just function closely enough. The word conceptually relates to stars but most specifically describes a layer of sky in which the afterlife rests (brinyavir is part of the phrase I translate as 'celestial fields'). The cattle there are said to have these markings. The stars in the night sky are sometimes playfully described as the spots of these cattle (though not literally, in Chenahyeigi cosmology stars are spirit-inhabited bonfires lit along pathways through the heavens).
As a color word for livestock, brinyavir refers to this rare (I Think nonexistent irl) white-spotted black coloration, due to both resembling the stars and the cattle that are moved among them.
Asi inwetadi - [ɑsi in:wetɑ:di]
This directly means 'like night sky', and is applied to this coat pattern with a similar underlying logic- it looks like a starry night sky. You will often see asi (like/akin to) retained in place or animal names like this, and it is sometimes part of names for people (the name Asinya is derived from a contracted 'like the sun').
This word is (or was) a way to say 'gravel' or 'gravelly' in both Chenahyeigi and Wardi, and is pronounced very similarly in both (with the only significant difference being emphasis)
In Chenahyeigi it is a loanword from the Wardi language family, most likely received in the exchange of cattle of this coloration. It is retained in general speech as a word for gravel, more specifically the adjective 'gravelly'.
The word is mostly obsolete in contemporary Wardi, speakers do not know it used to mean 'gravel' (though it sounds close enough to assume a connection, the word is 'ogri') and exclusively use it to describe this livestock coloration (one of the more common among Wardi native cattle).
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Also here's some cow lore.
There's some fairly tremendous diversity in Wardi cattle herds, given they have genetic influence from at least two separate aurochs domestication events (also distant and negligibly minor influence from one instance of bison domestication) and from multiple relatively isolated domestic cattle populations. Present day herds within Wardi provincial territory near-ubiquitously have at least some ancestry from the kulustaig and the Burri tepang cattle.
The ancestors of the Wardi native cow have been in the region for at Least 5,000 years. Burri cattle Possibly could have had tiny, isolated introductions between 2500-3000 years ago (this is extremely unlikely, but maize Was probably introduced by seafaring proto-Burri peoples at this time) or at more recent points since, and the tepang was certainly introduced during Imperial Burri occupation. High quality cattle are also occasionally received in diplomacy with the present-day Different Entity that is the Burri Republic. The kulustaig cattle arrived with proto-Finnic migrants starting 1500 years ago, and is the biggest external genetic influence on Wardi herds. Small populations of Yuroma native cattle arrived with migrants 540 years ago, though these have been wholly absorbed into Wardi herds, with their biggest trace being genes for naturally polled horns. Some Finn cattle were extracted in the recent two decades of Wardi occupation, though not enough to have a noteworthy genetic impact on any herds.
Most of the cattle in this post show predominantly Wardi native cattle + kulustaig ancestry (this takes place in the Ephenni riverlands, where the ancestry of herds tends to be around 2:1). The one with the blaze has a delicate sloping muzzle that suggests Burri tepang ancestry, and also likely has a wild aurochs grandparent (the white ring around the nose is a telltale sign, as it usually vanishes within a few generations of introgression).
Diversity in color and coat pattern is culturally favored for Wardi cattle herds, and selective breeding for aesthetics is usually limited to the purpose of preserving unique coats. The average herd tends to be very colorful, though the one shown here is a bit of an outlier, the universe having mysteriously put in place perfect conditions to compare the words for a variety of coat patterns.
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