#Or maybe with Thomas but go with the headcanon that he has his lil notepad

[slashedthroughtheheart]

Ok so, this has been bugging me for a while

Now, I know a lot of the fandom sees Bubba and Thomas as big plus size guys. And don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being plus size. I myself have been plus size and fat since I was about 14.

However, a lot of people, the way they talk about these two makes them sound obese.

And that really... rubs me the wrong way?

I’ll put it under a read more since this is getting long.

So, lets look at it the way I see it. I look at Bubba both in movie and in DBD model, and I see an average body typed man. Maybe just a bit thicker around the middle than average but by no means Fat. He has some fat to him, most at his middle. But for the most part? Bubba is basically all meaty muscley heft. He’s thick like a strongman is thick. Which is why he is so strong. Why he can run with a chainsaw. Why he can haul people up onto his shoulders easily.

He’s not capital F fat. And the reason it upsets me to see him be called fat isn’t because being fat is bad(it’s not, fat is good for your body), it’s that he’s very obviously Not Fat in the way most people talk about him as. And I can’t help but think ‘So... that’s what you consider Fat? What am I then? Oh My God Obese?’ because if someone who has the shape and outline of Bubba being considered Chunky Fat, it’s... disheartening? Like, he’s not overweight by any means even?

Look, this is the original Leatherface. This is the original Bubba. He has a bit of a tummy, but I would not call him fat. As someone who is fat, I look at him and I see average male body.

This is Bubba in DBD and here, yes, he has a bit of fat right at the lower part of his abdomen, but he still isn’t fat. He has big beefy arms, wide shoulders, some hips, and that bit of tummy. But he just isn’t Fat. I’d venture that this version of Bubba is the chubbiest, but even then he isn’t particularly chubby. And he’s also pretty tall here. His weight is distributed rather evenly. He is proportionate.

And the same thing is done to Thomas who is even LESS fat than Bubba. He carries his ‘weight’ very well and it’s basically all muscle. The person who played Thomas was a wrestler, like? He was physically fit. He wasn’t chunky. He wasn’t fat.

And yet people talk about how Thomas would be insecure about his ‘pudge’ and the only thing I can think of is ‘what pudge?’

Thomas is Thicc but with muscle, not fat.

Look at him, that isn’t fat. He has a thick waist, which so many wrongly conflate with being fat. But no, he’s muscle. He’s strong. He isn’t fat. He’s got a barrel chest. He’s Big in a way that isn’t fat. He’s Big in a way that is spooky because it speaks strength, and we all know what he’s capable of.

And all of this just smacks of fatphobia. Because if someone like Thomas or Bubba is considered chunky fat, anyone who is Actually Fat is going to get alienated. Because the people who are doing this are doing it in an ‘uwu soft fat boi, protect him’ and like, if they were fat, that’s still gross?

Do not get me wrong, if you wanna headcanon them as being bigger, and you draw them bigger, that’s okay! But the stuff I’m talking about is these skinny people looking at someone who’s just physically bigger than them and just auto assuming that they’re fat just because they are physically bigger. And it’s gross. And damaging.

This has bugged me for so long, from the moment I stepped into this fandom.

It happens mid game too when I play Dead by Daylight and there’s a Bubba as the killer and people I either watch or am playing with will say ‘Oh, there’s the fat bastard’. Like, this is a problem. Bubba isn’t fat, none of the killers in DBD are fat. I’ve heard people call Trapper fat and he’s not? He’s built like a fucking tree. But it isn’t fat.

Just because a person physically takes up more space than you doesn’t make them fat.

Fat isn’t bad! I have a feeling a lot of this stems from people wanting to seem ~inclusive~ or woke or w/e, but they don’t actually want to respect fat people. They want to find the max size of a person they’re comfortable with existing and then label that fat, because to them, that is as fat as someone can be and still be tolerable.

I look at myself in the mirror and then look at how Bubba looks like even with all his clothes on, and I’m fatter. By a lot. I’m also afab so my fat sits differently, but still. I have a marked difference in body fat than Bubba. I’m Fat. And I can still lift people. I used to be a firefighter. I used to be captain of my volleyball team. I used to swim miles every day when I still lived close to the ocean. And even then, I was still fat.

I look at that, and think about those things, and I can only wonder and fear what the people who go ‘uwu soft chubby Bubba’ would say about me.

Words that have been thrown at me before come to mind, and I can only guess that they’d be similar.

It’s upsetting to think that people look at the actual model for Bubba in game and point and call him fat(derogatory). Because... he isn’t. And some of these people used to be my friends, until I just quietly shunted them from my life, because I don’t want that toxicity in my life. I don’t need them to find out I’m even bigger and turn around and call me the fat bastard.

I’ve had enough of that in my life already. I’ve been anywhere from just a little chubby to full on fat ever since I was a teen. I know how it feels to have your weight be the point of criticism/bullying/butt of jokes. It’s not good.

And all of this makes me really hesitant to even think about writing and posting stuff for Thomas and Bubba and really any of the other slashers who the fandom have deemed to be fat. Because I don’t see any of the slashers as fat in the slightest.

Because I won’t write them fat. I won’t write them having love handles to pinch like so many writers like to give Bubba. I won’t write them having a double chin. Because they don’t. And for me, the art I do, it’s all written. I can’t draw them, I can’t do them justice like that and be like ‘Here’s a comforting headcanon of them being actually chubby that makes me feel closer to them.’

I don’t trust the fandom to know I mean Actual Fat if I wrote those things. I don’t trust fandom to just read those things and think I believe Source Material is that.

And the whole thing that makes this worse? A lot of slashers were bullied when they were young, something a good majority of fat people understand and went through themselves. Something I went through. And I felt a kinship with slashers and fell in love with so many of them because I Get It. I have empathy for what they went through. While the things we faced weren’t the same, we still face ridicule for something we couldn’t change.

And before anyone goes and says ‘it’s not that deep’, I want everyone to think about why most people gravitate towards the slasher fandom. It’s usually out of that idea of ‘Society has cast you aside, it’s also cast me aside for whatever reason, so lets stick together’.

When you’re othered, you tend to lean more towards people that were othered as well.

When your own society has made you feel like you don’t belong, seeing someone else being cast out as well makes you more likely to bond to them. My very first slasher I fell for was Jason Voorhees. And it was real obvious why for me. I was a young little kid who had the nerdiest interests, and wore glasses, and was a bit chubby in the face even if I was thin everywhere else, and I was also the only not white kid in my area. And I had asthma? I was easy game. I got made fun of relentlessly, just like Jason did.

Kids physically hurt me as well. And when I first watched Friday the 13th, the connection I felt to him? That feeling? It was instant. I understood him, and my heart ached for him, because I KNOW how bad it hurts.

And I fell for Thomas, and Bubba, and Michael. And so many others. All because there was that connection. That moment of seeing just a sliver of my own pain in them.

And I’d venture a guess that that’s on par for why a lot of the people in the slasher fandom are even in the slasher fandom.

So why is there so much of this fatphobia? Why is there so many people who act like their original bodies are fat when they’re not? Why are we being othered in the one place we really shouldn’t be?

If you see this happening, say something. Point it out and say ‘that isn’t fat, why do you think that’s fat?’ This whole ‘body positivity’ movement is garbage and the roots of it are just so gross. ‘Don’t worry, you’re still sexy even if you’re fat’ like no. We don’t want body positivity, we want to stop being ridiculed for our bodies. It’s as simple as that. It’s literally just about wanting to be treated as humans with respect.

So please, be mindful of what you say. Hold yourself accountable for the impact you have with your words.