#fat women are not any more or less kind than thin women

[grippysockassbitch]

The next time I see a man saying that the reason they would still date a fat woman even though she’s not thin is bc they’re “usually nicer and more compassionate” I’m going to explode Nevada with my mind

[bunnys-kisses]

hiii!!! can I get carrot cake + pastry braid + peach cake with any COD character?? x

🩷🩷

bakery menu

want to submit your own order? then hit up the menu! there are all kinds of things and hopefully you find something you like! i accept prompts outside of call of duty, so please! submit something! comments & reblogs are also appreciated!! as for this anon, thank you for the prompt! and thank you for letting me choose which character, that's always fun for me! i hope you enjoy!!

carrot cake ("swallow it. all of it.") + pastry braid ("your job is to make me cum. now get to work.") + peach cake ("if you spill a drop, we start all over.") served by commander phillip graves (call of duty)!

cw: smut/pwp, dark-ish fic, manipulative!graves, power imbalance, uprotected sex, office sex, clothed man/naked woman, smoking

it didn't hit you till later while at home with your newborn, that the training that your commander phillip graves gave you was not what the rest of the prospects went through.

you were bright-eyed and bushy tailed, you were such a sweetheart. graves once watched you put your entire team before yourself in training. he watched you bruise and batter yourself for the sake of others. but those gleaming eyes of yours, how your smile lit up your face... no, no, you shouldn't be a shadow. you should be phillip graves' wife.

"i don't know what to say, darlin'. you're just not good enough yet." graves sighed as he leaned back in his chair and grabbed a cigarette from his shirt pocket. he got the lighter from out of his pocket as well and lit up the smoke. as he exhaled smoke he said, "deadlines are soon, i want to make sure you're the best of the bed." his tone was almost scolding and it made you frown.

"i'm sorry, sir." you mumbled, your shoulders were hunched as you accepted his sharp words. you frowned a little and tried to make yourself smaller.

"it's alright, beautiful." he said, softening his words with a compliment, "why don't you get undressed for me and let me see what can be done tonight." he shifted in his seat a little, spreading his legs further. you could see the bulge in his slacks, " remember. your job is to make me cum. now get to work."

you got out of your fatigues that you had been in most of the day, you could feel graves' heated gaze on you as everything came off. including what you wore underneath. it was then folded neatly and put on the desk. you were stripped bare for him.

he took another drag on his smoke. and smiled at you, "pretty as always." he leaned forward for a moment to get a closer look, "is that a new mole on your hip. let me see."

you stepped forward and he put a calloused hand on your hip. feeling the bit of fat on them. it was enticing. he never understood men who wanted their women stick thin. wasn't the most enticing part of a steak the bit of fat that came with it. he ran his thumb across the mole on your hip. you quivered a little, "i think it's always been there, sir."

"probably." he said as he put the smoke in his mouth, the end of it glowed a little as he inhales the rough smoke. even if that wasn't a new mole, your stomach would soon be lined with stretch marks. he leaned back and gazed at you, around the smoke he said, "sit." then patted his lap.

he put the cigarette out on your collarbone with one last exhale of smoke right in your face. his words were low, "swallow it. all of it." in reference to the smoke in your face. he watched your squirm and it only aroused him further. pretty little titties, pretty little cunt. you were a siren, a tease for him. you shouldn't be running around base trying to win a position as one of graves' shadows. pretty things should be kept a home.

he put the cigarette into the ashtray before he moved you to get his cock out of his slacks, "do you remember how to do this?" as if he wasn't deep inside of you less than twenty-four hours earlier. he watched you nod before he leaned back into his leather desk chair once more.

you straddled his waist, a bit of a weird angle given the size of the expensive office chair. you could feel graves' cock up against you and with a little help, you sank onto his length as he trained you. you could feel his nestled in your gut, and it made you warm all over.

he put a rough hand over your mouth to keep you quiet with his other on your hip. his hand smelled like cigarettes as you closed your eyes a little bit and started to move your hips. rolling them up and down his cock.

"pretty thing. i think all of this training will do you well. you're learning so much." he chuckled a little, hearing your muffled whimpers as you struggle to take his entire length. you felt full. he continued, "it's about behaving, that's what makes a good shadow. to listen to your commander and be good."

you clutched onto his shoulder with one hand and his wrist with the other. you pressed his hard further onto your mouth. you felt all the rough patches, the dried skin and the callouses. all the build up from years of combat. your hole fluttered around his length and he loved it. you fit with him perfectly.

he had trained you. but you weren't primed for combat. you were primed to be sent back to america with the graves' last name and a sleepy little baby. once again, pretty things belong at home. he'd be an idiot to let you out on the battlefield. you didn't need guns or gear. you needed a nice big home and full womb. motherhood is a battle you are more suited for.

you whimpered as you continued to ride him. feeling close to your future commander, letting him nudge against such soft areas. your stomach twisted at the intensity of it all. you were soaked and vulnerable. you were twisted up in between graves' fingers. you were an angel to him. soft in all the right places, perfect for graves to sink his teeth into.

he can already smell the cooking dinner, the drawings on the fridge and the home you'd share. the swell in your middle, the soft kisses when he came home followed by the alone time you'd have after the kids were put to bed. that dream was only possible if you got pregnant.

his voice was in your head, clouding it with a sexual want, "if you spill a drop out of that sweet pussy, we start all over. shadows can survive on little to no sleep, hun. so i can keep you up all night." one his swimmers just had to reach the finish line and you'd be leaving the services. no more dreams of being a shadow when your middle pokes out. can't be stealthy with a baby at your hip.

it was depraved, you should feel filthy for letting yourself get stuffed full of his seed. unprotected too. silly girl. no one that dumb should ever dream about become as elite as a shadow. you were too soft.

"graves." you whined.

"shh. shh. keep moving." he said lowly. everything about him swirled in your head. polluting any sense of reason.

you weren't even too sure if you came at any point. it didn't hit like a train but rather a leak in your skull. everything felt hazy and hastily pieced together. your face was flushed and your wetness had dripped down graves' balls. graves was very well aware, that without you knowing he had managed to already fill you once. he tried nott o show it across his face, but he was fucking a second load into you.

but the over-stimulation from the first time made it easy from him to cum again. it was like he was a live wire ready to spark. and your moans were muffled but still so erotic. graves picked a good one.

when he came again, he watched your expression as he dumped inside of you once more. making sure to stay in you for a moment so his seed had nowhere else to go. and in all fairness that's where it belonged.

"sir." you said meekly.

"i know." he replied as you slowed down. he watched you unfocused gaze, the rush of it all was just too much for you. now how were you going to be a shadow if you got overwhelmed like this? his hand grazed your stomach and his cock twitched inside of you, giving one last spurt of cum.

he then lazily kissed you. he tasted of smoke. it clogged your head further and made you core throb. his voice was in your ear, "no be good for me and take everything i've given you." and before you knew it, you were placed over the wooden desk, trying your best not to let any cum leak out while graves slid into you once more.

if your womb was going to be stubborn about giving him a baby, then he'd simple have to flood it, giving it no choice.

now, you had a newborn son tucked into your arm while you made sure that he was back asleep. your tummy was still soft from carrying him for nine months. the ring on your finger caught well in the low light of the nursery. you lived in a nice house outside of autsin, texas and cooked meals for your husband. you were mrs. graves, a far cry from the shadow you attempted to be.

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

I started listening to Maintenance Phase likeeee 3 work days ago and I'm very !!!!!! about it

Anyway let's see if Apple sues me for typing out all these transcript screenshots

TWs for fatphobia, diet culture, abuse, concern trolling (?),

“We have sort of very conveniently, as a culture, just collapsed our definition of health into our visual assessment of our own weight" —Aubrey Gordon

"Nobody gives a shit about the resting heart rate or the LDL cholesterol readings of someone who's skinny. [...] I think people can genuinely believe thay they are concerned for fat people's health and that that belief can be rooted in faulty information and biased beliefs that they have been fed and sort of consumed pretty uncritically for most of us for our whole lives, right?

There is this sort of like, noblese oblige that happens with thin people, right? Which is sort of this belief that I have cracked the code on being thin and you have not. So it is my duty to instruct you on how to have a body that is less like yours and more like mine.

I started writing, you know, for that audience, for people who were good, thoughtful, kind people who have never really thought critically about the ways in which they think abut and interact with and treat fat people. [...] Like, how many times have we just seen a random sentence in a random artticle that's just like, 'da-da-da, fat people are unhealthy, da-da-da', right? It's one of those presumptions that sort of doesn't even need unpacking anymore. There's a lot of people who believe this because this is something we've all been told a million times. And it's actually more complicated than that. Believe it or not, it's not as simple as every fat person is unhealthy and every skinny person is healthy, and every fat person needs you to tell them that they're unhealthy constantly. 'If we shame them, then everybody will not be fat anymore.' These are things that a lot of us believe without really interrogating them. Well, I mean, that's also part of what's helped me pretty immensely in feeling okay in my body, is doing this kind of research, right? And finding that actually, those messages, those specific actual messages, are part of what's keeping us fat. And so is trying to lose weight.

"One of the most striking statistics I came across, when I was researching a big long article that I wrote about this two years ago now, I think, is that 1/3 of quote unquote 'obese' people have completely normal health markers, like they are not unhealthy, they do not have any of the risk factors, and around 25% of skinny people do have the risk factors. This is all one big scatter plot.

[...] I think about constantly is that actually the fatter you get, the less likely it is that you will become thin in your lifetime, right? For women my size, there is less than a one tenth of one percent chance that we at any point in our lives get to what is considered a quote unquote 'healthy' or 'normal' BMI, right? So we are talking about infinitesimal likelihood that this will not succeed, and all of our treatment of fat people is predicated on the idea that this is not only possible, but if you can't do it, it's because there's something wrong with you. And it's necessary. It's like, no, you have to do this thing that is almost sure to fail and is likely to make whatever you have worse.

There's something that happens when I am with a person who is willing to say the word fat. I know that they are not so afraid of my body that they will just act out of their own weird biases. If someone is willing and able to say the word fat in good faith, that tells me that they are as much concerned with how l identify myself as they are with projecting their own beliefs about fatness and fat people onto me by calling me 'fluffy' or 'more to love' or whatever. The sort of challenges that fat people face don't come from a word. They come from the ways that we treat fat people. And if we can't talk about that in a direct and honest way, we are always going to fall short in addressing sort of what fat people need.

And honestly, like, my first response was absolute terror that he had noticed [I was fat]. I was so terrified that he had said anything about my size that I felt like my whole job in the world was to get people to forget that I was fat, which is an impossible task. I had spent 20 some years hiding from my own body. That is an impossible task.

I mean, the sort of the basic presumption of every, you know, billboard 'eat five fruits and vegetables a day' poster we've ever seen in our lives is it is bad to be fat and fat people are unhealthy.

There really aren't any positive messages about like, 'Leave fat people alone' or like 'Fat people are fine' or 'Somebody else's health is none of your business.' All of us have grown up in this just toxic sludge of like being fat is the worst possible outcome for you. We have sort of been so careless with the way that we talk about fatness and fat people that we are now at the point that instead of when we talk about health risks, we're actually talking about people. And when we talk about people, we're talking about them as if they are health risks, like human health risks."

[butterfly-winx]

Could you talk more about male fairies please?

Ok in all honesty I was looking for an ask that wanted me to elaborate on body issues and male fairies following my post way back about Radius, but I was having more general thoughts anyway. I hope you don't mind.

Ever since the invention of sorcery, fairy magic has been stamped off as the more emotional magic art in contrast to rational sorcery. Emotions and rationality, two sides of a whole, have become juxtaposed and in turn associated with gender roles. Emotions are a feminine thing, while being rational was overtly masculine. Fey magic became a predominantly feminine art as less and less men/ masculine people took up the trade, out of fear of being ridiculed.

In modern times still, there are more sorceresses than there are male fairies: the bias against them just doesn't offer the kind of male bias in a female dominated field that we are used to in our world.

(The extreme ties to femininity also dissuades many gender non-conforming women from pursuing fey magic.)

Men who take up fey magic often have to deal with rumors about their claimed impotence, "small dick", or have their gender speculated about, with assumptions of them being closeted trans women.

This gets even harder when you add non-conventional bodies into the mix. Transformations represent an idealised body, covering blemishes and scars unless the user wields it so that it doesn't. Idealised in connection with femininity often means thin, fair and hairless, which is antithetical to how many men like to represent.

Then there is the issue of flight. Fairies are meant to present as graceful, gentle and loving (and lovable in turn); and people get so up in arms about it when this is applied to a fat body. It becomes the bumblebee paradox of little wings on a heavy body.

The term "bumblebee" for fat/chubby fairies actually stems from parents' kind words to their children: "The others may be wasps, but you are my darling little bumblebee". Many children found strength in these words until the "in" group caught wind of it and the term was used to pester and bully fat fey magic users, ridiculing them. (Some people do refer to themselves as bumblebee in reclamation of the word, but it's a matter of personality and how serious one takes oneself bc it does come off as youthful/childish).

So if plain acceptance is not possible, what else can fat magic users do? Conform? Fat people are already forced to perform their gender at a level of perfection beyond critique to be afforded dignity. In the case of fey magic this gets even more complicated for fat men since the art is entrenched in femininity and being effeminate is almost inextricably linked to being youthful, thin and waif-ish: essentially being the quintessential twink. It is no coincidence that gender non-conforming gay men often chose fey magic. But where does that leave fat men who need to present masculine in broader society, yet feminine in connection to their art?

There are certainly men who lean into masculinity wholly and eschew any connection to femininity. Others as said above are all for embracing their feminine side, but often those people are also effeminate in general. Again others see it as a performance (think drag). Gender expression is malleable and a craft that can be formed and re-formed as one needs. It is just a matter of personality, preference and self-confidence in detangling oneself from the societal expectations. Radius, simply by existing so self-unashamedly in such a high position of power has set new standards and became a role model for many young fey magic users, regardless of gender.

[boys-kissing-boys-ew]

it's a small hell afterall

Go back to AO3 for warnings and tags!

Damien thinks.

He thinks a lot. About his father, his life. He thinks about the church he grew up in, and the lawsuits foretold. He thinks about his mother, disappeared for sin.

He thinks about the time he drank the dark red wine that night she died in the hospital. Too opaque to be true wine. Too thick.

He thinks about the scars that litter his calves and his heel, the way he tries to narrowly avoid any weight but the ball of his feet.

He thinks about men and women, and everything vastly in between and outside of that. He thinks about their marriages, questions why they feel and how. He thinks about the want to have children, and the unrelenting fear to not have.

He thinks about his school. The children within. He thinks about his teachers, and the counselor.

He thinks about Eric Cartman. The fat kid with a poor sense of humor, hand in hand with his worst enemies and best friends all at once.

He thinks about Philip Pirrup. How the boy was kind to him no matter how far their friendship strained between moves. Between court cases. Even throughout foster care. Moves away and moves back.

Philip.

Pip.

What a strange nickname. Damien had always found it foolish. It wasn't the beginning, nor the end. Nothing in the middle. It was all in one. One less syllable.

It had been Pip until 6th grade, when he came back from two years in Florida.

On the first day of school, he had taken a seat next to him.

He didn't wave.

He didn't even look at him.

During the middle of class. Silence.

Interrupted by a small voice, "Hello, Philip."

He was startled hard enough to not even respond for nearly a minute, and when he did, it wasn't another greeting. Rather, "It's good to see you again."

Oh, how he wished he was hearing that voice now.

All the other voices, and not one sounded like him.

They weren't often to argue, they stayed in their lane and had conversations when needed. It was typically small.

But Leo had overstepped a line with Emile, which left Emile shouting at him until Simon came crying.

There were so many people here now.

God, Damien could name at least one hundred.

Leo, Emile, Simon, Will, Zach, Michael...

No, no. Too many. Too much. Too many thoughts.

Damien shook his head, attempting to remove like an etch-a-sketch.

He stared at the carpet, the lines spaced no more than five feet each.

They warped and bended as he stared at the unmoving ground, shuttering and shoving beneath him.

He looked up at the ceiling, the unimaginable amount of bugs making even his stomach churn as they came in and out of the ceiling.

The itchiness around his neck, the forceful urge to get himself out of his skin.

His nails sharp and relentless, ripping and prodding at his thin, pale flesh. Torn by the slightest threat of sharpness.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

The slightest sticky warmth of plasma and white blood cells in his nails, then shortly after, thin, light blood caked on the tips of fingers.

Something was in him.

Something needed to get out.

Someone was yelling for him, someone that wasn't as far in his mind as he was.

No one screamed at Leo for anything, or Emile for anything. No crying children.

No, the voice that called could touch the walls. Inspect the clean ceiling and the still carpet. The voice that never intruded his mind past 2:52 PM. Never on the weekends. Only talking to him at 7:48 AM on weekdays.

This voice never followed him home, never screamed. Never cut, never broke and ripped and tore. Never searched for things that were gone.

This voice...

God, he was so happy to hear that voice.

"Damien,"

God, he could hear that name a million times from those lips. He would love to hear it said in a scold. Whispered to him in the morning. Screamed at night. Repeated over and over until no names were said at all. Sobbed. Begged. The last word he would hear. All from those lips.

All from this boy.

He wanted it all. His first, his last. His everything. His in between.

"Damien, hey, hey, hey,"

Hi. He wanted to respond with a wave and a reserved smile, a pained, inexperienced expression towards his gapped teeth, towards his round nose, his freckles, his strawberry blonde hair cut into that God-awful bowlcut.

"It's okay,"

Damien knew it wasn't. He wasn't in his arms. Wasn't at his wedding. Wasn't married. They were just friends. It's not okay, it's not okay. Nothing will be okay.

"Hey, breathe,"

God, how he wished he needed that instruction. He wished he needed to be told, as if it weren't automated. He wished he could stop.

Something was touching him.

Something was touching him.

And oh God, the warmth. The painful pin and needle feeling of human contact. The burning, blistering feeling of knowing that someone was touching you. Willing to touch you. Not too disgusting to have otherwise.

"Damien, Love..."

He opened his eyes.

That strawberry blonde was kneeled down before him, still tall and thin and dorky as ever.

"There you are..." He sighed.

His smile was gone. That beautiful, wretched smile. He did this. He messed up, again. All again. It's bad again. It's happening again.

Philip's silhouette gets blurry around the edges, and for a split second, Damien can swear he sees blood caked on his lips and cheeks.

"You're–"

Philip opens his arms.

"Hh?"

"Would a hug help?"

That horrible burn was back. It soaked through his flannel, his stomach. It made tears pool in his eyes and his gag reflex stutter.

"Oh, poor boy..." Philip says quietly, "Oh, I know..."

Damien hadn't realised he was bawling until he heard a choked sob from himself.

"Phil," He sobbed, gripping to the flap of his dress shirt. Not high enough to be his collar, but not low enough to indicate something that he wasn't sure he'd ever be ready for.

"Hello, Baby..." He cooed down at him, gently stroking his dark hair. It had been at least a fortnight since wash, yet Philip didn't seem to mind. He never seemed to mind.

Damien's head pounded. He couldn't sleep, though. What about the bugs? If they're on the ceiling, and his skin is crawling, then who's to say?

He had never disliked bugs. He just detest groups of them.

"It's alright," He soothes, allowing his head to rest on his collar. "Nobody's gonna hurt you."

A cold cloth is pressed to the wound on his neck, and he immediately feels his anxiety prick as he remembers the fact that Philip now carries around a first aid kit because of his doing.

"Can you tell me what you see?"

Damien glances over his shoulder, eyeing the familiar hallway.

"Bugs," He whimpers, clutching onto the fabric harder. He felt a zing on his finger, looking down to see that he was sinking his teeth into the knuckle of his pointer.

"Can you tell me if they're real or not?"

This was an exercise that Mackey had taught them, back when Damien had been diagnosed. Philip wanted nothing more in this world but to help him cope.

Damien hesitates.

"Can you remember if they're there normally?" Philip tries.

"They're...not." Damien settles, burrying his face back. "They're fake."

"Good job, Baby..." Philip congratulates, "Good job. You're doing so well for me."

That voice.

"Thanks," Damien whispers.

"Not a problem at all!"

He shakes his head, and he can feel the newly applied bandages on the nape crinkle and pull at the baby hairs. "Pulled from class."

The boy laughs, a sound and feeling that Damien would pay millions to hold on to. "And I enjoyed being in the same room as Garrison and Cartman? No thank you, Kind Sir!"

Damien could feel a giggle bubble up in his diaphragm, lightly vibrating throughout his body.

"Anyway, what a douche I'd be to receive two texts from seperate kids and not come to check on you?"

"Hmn?" Damien hummed, curious.

"Oh, well, technically three. First was Tweek and Craig. Craig phoned be about it. Tweek was on one of them ol' 'brain breaks'. The next was Marj, who had gone to the loo and seen you on the way."

Damien nods.

"Speaking of; I'm supposed to be at the loo right now, as far as Garrison knows."

His heart beats twice as fast.

"Hey, hey, 's alright. You're alright." He soothes, "I think we can call my mum and set up a sleepover for tonight. How's that sound?"

"Y' sure?"

Philip nods, pulling away to look Damien in the eyes.

"Let's go call in 'sick.'"

And so they left, hands intertwined.

[sullina]

it's kind of amazing how many different areas the phrase "tv and media lied to you" is applicable to

being fat isn't nearly as bad as magazines make it out to be. In most cases, it's actually beneficial to your health

The biggest cause of weight is genetics. If your parents are fat, then you are also likely to be fat. This is not a bad thing.

Thin people are not thin because they are morally superior, they just got genetically lucky. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. However, if a thin person makes fun of a fat person for being fat, the thin person is definitely not the one who is morally superior. They're a bully and an asshole.

If a person is terrible and also happens to be fat, them being terrible has nothing to do with them being fat. You can insult people without bringing their weight into it and if you find yourself unable to do just that, you need to get some new insults. What are you gonna do when a thin person is terrible? Compliment their looks? You have no moral backbone (this is a bad thing) (This one applies to real people only. I don't care if you think the thin villain in the newest disney movie or gacha game is hot)

In most TV shows, the bully will be portrayed as fat (and usually also ugly). This is the complete opposite of how it is in real life, where fatness is the nr. 1 cause of bullying.

In several studies, it's been shown that rigorous exercise does not lead to weight loss, and neither does a lifestyle change. Exercise and good food are healthy regardless of whether it makes you lose weight, which most of the time, it won't. In other words, stop assuming fat people are just lazy or are only eating junk food and candy.

"Calories in, calories out" is not true. Human bodies are extremely complex. Just because eating more can make you gain a bit of weight, does not mean that the opposite, eating less leads to weight loss, is true as well.

A fat person is not a person that could be thin if they just "stopped being lazy". Every person has a set weight that their body will try to maintain regardless of diet or exercise and there is not one single diet that has been scientifically documented to make you lose weight.

Fat people can be as fit or unfit as thin people, but places where exercise can be done like gyms or in public tend to be extremely fatphobic, in turn discouraging fat people from going there and leading to them being unable to exercise much or at all, pushing them to fulfill the "unfit fat person" stereotype. Think of it like the "women are weaker than men" stereotype. Women are/used to be heavily discouraged from exercising because muscles are not womanly or whatever. A body type doesn't make someone unfit. The only thing that determines whether someone is fit or not is whether they exercise, which in turn means that the option of exercising in a safe space with appropriate equipment has to be available. Fatphobic spaces, LIKE gyms with appropriate equipment, are not safe spaces for fat people. This is independent of other things like appropriate clothing. Unless you are fat yourself, you likely won't know how hard it is to find any kind of clothing for a fat body that is actually comfortable, not to mention exercise clothing that fits appropriately.

Fatphobia is incredibly normalized in this society with the excuse of concern, but you cannot shame people into being thin, much like you can't shame someone into being good at math. Many humans just like having a punching bag to bully for some reason. This is a bad thing. This also means that encouraging someone to lose weight is also fatphobic, because 1) it is straight not possible except for laughably small number of the population and 2) if your reasoning is that they'll be healthier, you are also straight up wrong. Someone can be fat AND perfectly healthy and fit. If you want someone to be healthier, encouraing weight loss is not the way.

Read "health at every size" by Linda (now going by Lindo) Bacon, PhD. It is 10 bucks or less on amazon, depeding on what form you choose to order it as (Kindle and Paperback. the audio CD is somehow almost 40 bucks for some reason)

Edit: I have been informed that Dr Bacon has come out as genderqueer and changed their name to Lindo with they/them pronouns. The book is published under their former name though, and you will see that name when you follow the link I gave, so i wrote their former name just to avoid any potential confusion.

[irritatednick]

Of course we should see fat characters doing cool things

Fatphobia is so weird. Noah Samsen critiques the argument that video game protagonists can't be fat because it wouldn't be "realistic" for them to perform the feats we see. This is just silliness. It reminds me of claims about muscularity in anime. Goku or whoever HAS to have those muscles to fight like that... like, of course not? Characters can be jacked or not; they still couldn't jump that high or fly or throw things or survive those blows or shoot energy beams. It's symbolism. Fat-coded characters can't do these superhuman things because... why? It's hard even for me to convince myself that it's fine and even good actually to have fat protagonists do cool stuff. It's the part of me that still feels that their thinness or fitness is aspirational. For me, thin anime characters = the natural self and muscular anime characters = the evolved self. Either one I can see as authentic or liberated in some way, but as a fat kid, I was neither of these things. So many guys envy having muscles - ha, imagine also envying you.

And this issue is related to the women in video games thing because fat is girl-coded; having more of it makes even muscular guys seem less capable, and usually excludes all girls from active roles. Which is really dumb, because I see no reason why girls in fiction should be. Powers in anime and sci-fi/fantasy video games are essentially magic. Where martial arts & combat are involved, why wouldn't girls be equally suited to it? Are they less agile, less tactical, less perceptive? They're generally smaller and less muscular. That's it. For fuck's sake, most shonen anime have some kind of chi system. That's mental/spiritual insight and prowess. Why on earth would girls be worse at tapping into THIS? It's absurd. Even in Naruto, females are often in supportive roles despite showing physical strength and resolve. The "training" that characters do to perform supernatural feats is beyond any neuromuscular conditioning rooted in real world biology. So why the fuck does your sex matter? The only explanation is that it's just not what females innately care about doing.

Oh and another thing I want to mention re Noah's video: to support his claim, Think Before You Sleep refers to "obese people who are 400 pounds." The Lara Croft model here was fatter and therefore closer to what average women look like than her usual model, but not 400 lbs. Curious why an argument concerning the supposed realistic abilities of the average woman became about 400-pound women. It's almost as if fat is so symbolic that the (presumed) limitations of a small subset of fat people are mapped onto the thinnest of fat people.

Noah Samsen's video with a timestamp:

Anti-Wokeness: A Nonsense Ideology - YouTube

Image credit to The Bulimia Project

[cookiedoughbimbo]

Hey, me again! 😊 You said in a previous ask that you like being measured. Have you taken any measurements recently that you'd want to share? Also, do you like comparing your measurements to reference ranges and seeing that you're "officially" overweight/etc.?

Hey, nice hearing from you again! Honestly, this is probably a disappointing answer, but it gives me an opportunity to kind of "confess" why I haven't been posting on this account much. I've actually lost a lot of weight since last posting photos here. I'm still nowhere near thin and far more overweight than "chubby," but I was lucky enough to move into a new place right next to a gym. As much as I love feederism, I also genuinely love working out, so I started going regularly in August of last year and have basically worked out for an hour every weekday since. I haven't taken any measurements and any statistics I could share would just be a massive turn off for anyone interested in feederism. Sometimes I do like thinking about how I'm officially overweight, but most of the time, I'm neutral on that fact or if anything I lean towards wanting to be thin. I honestly don't think I'd like weighing less than a weight where I'd consider myself to be chubby, but being fat is not necessarily something I want to be in reality, even if I'm still into the thought of being a feedee. Does that mean I'm done posting feederism content? Probably not, but it is a big reason for why I haven't been posting anything here. I'm actually really glad that I've gotten into going to the gym and I'd prefer not creating or seeing stuff that would encourage me to shun the gym, even if it's still super hot.

I do have plans to start posting more content on this account someday though; most likely sooner rather than later, but that content will probably appeal more to people that like women who look a lot thinner than I used to be. Additionally, that content will probably have a much bigger focus on my other two main fetishes; Bimbofication and Hypnotism. I hope this isn't a disappointment to too many of you and that you'll all stick around to see what I end up posting in the future, but I do really appreciate all the affection I've gotten. If I didn't know there would be a community who accepts me at my fattest and considers me hot, I would have been a lot more afraid of failing going to the gym and had a much harder time starting to work out. Hence why I sadly don't really want encouragement to give into my feederism fantasies anymore. I hope you all understand and empathize! 💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤

[captain-kit-adventuress]

I'd also like to add that historically speaking, much of the anti-fatness movement has its roots in racism, not just a CEO's bottom line.

There was a massive resurgence in the popularity of outright white supremacy in the 1920s in particular (though it had been growing for a long time before that, not that it ever really went away), and it was not an accident that thinness was equated with a particular kind of (white) femininity. When you add in the racism behind how white people stereotyped and exoticised the image of a "typical" Black woman, it's easy to see that fashion only ever went so far in the so-called liberating influences of silhouettes like La Garçonne and the looser dresses which came to predominate the time--boyish, perhaps, but never anything less than still delicate enough to be considered womanly by the values of the time.

It's just another reason that elevating so-called "liberation" from functional corsets to the aesthetic-prioritising shapewear of girdles can hardly be called a liberation at all. I would argue that this shift from using clothing and accessories to give the illusion of silhouette to trying to alter the actual shape of the body itself is far more dangerous and insidious practice than corset-wearing ever was.

If anyone wants to do something truly radical, work to eliminate societal body standards altogether, for any gender. But that's a lot harder than spouting ahistorical nonsense in favour of an agenda that hates women at least as much as patriarchy does.

The fact that thinness came in vogue (as seen in popular culture, magazines, fashion models, etc.) in the 1920s when women got the right to vote is telling. We got real, tangible power and then were told to be thin to achieve beauty, and sickly thin too. The kind of thin with no muscles, no power. It is not surprising to me that our beauty standards keep women physically weaker, physically starving, and mentally exhausted. The beauty standard is nothing more than a tool to keep women weak, docile, poor, and too tired to act.

[toneophealth]

Understand The Types Of Dal For Losing Weight

Can you lose weight by eating dal? Including dal or lentils in your regular diet will help you healthily lose weight and provide your body with all the necessary nutrients to operate correctly.

Pulses provide several health advantages and help with weight maintenance. Eating different kinds of pulses can satisfy a range of dietary needs. You should eat pulses regularly because they are an excellent source of protein and fibre. Including pulses is the way to go if you want to fulfil yourself and maintain your body shape.

You can use ToneOp's weight loss plan to optimise the effects of dal.

Tell us more about the benefits of dal for losing weight.

Types Of Dal

Let's look at several kinds of dal that can be eaten to lose weight.

1. Chana Dal

A well-known staple meal in India is the chickpeas, also known as Bengal grams, which make up the pulse in chana dal. Often sold deskinned, chana dal, also known as channa, is similar in size to microscopic chickpeas. Combining the lentil's nutty flavour with the spicy spices makes for a filling and substantial dish.

2. Masoor Dal

One prevalent type of lentil is Masoor Dal. The whole or split red lentils made masoor dal are highly valued for their short cooking times and mildly sweet flavour. Split red lentils have a mellow texture, making them great in soups and curries. 

Though they are prepared similarly to chana dals, masoor dals have unique flavour profiles because of the properties of the pulses. You can prepare masoor dal for weight loss and incorporate it into your diet.

3. Moong Dal

Combining mung dal with other pulses in a box is a challenging task. When split, lentils lose their green colour and turn a pale yellow; this is when they are called mung dal. A dish that includes pulses has an earthy, buttery flavour that will delight no matter how prepared.

4. Urad Dal

Black gram lentils are the foundation pulse in the meal known as urad dal. The flavour of urad dal is softer and more subdued when cooked with the skin still on.

Indians use urad dals a lot when preparing papadums. 

This famous food is a thin, crisp, seasoned flatbread baked or fried over dry heat. But because black gram is a stronger lentil, it takes longer to cook than other lentils. 

5. Toor Dal

Indian cuisine often uses toor dal or cracked yellow pigeon peas. Like chana dal, toor dal may be swiftly prepared and served, making it an excellent daily meal.

Add zing to your toor dal by preparing a tadka with cumin seeds, red chilli powder, and garlic. Even though the dal is already golden, a small pinch of turmeric powder will improve its appearance and nutritious value.

How Effective Is Dal In Losing Weight?

Dal is a nutritious supplement to any diet that encourages losing weight. The secret to reducing weight is to create a calorie deficit. This suggests that you burn more calories each day than you take in. 

Consequently, there will be a calorie deficit when low-calorie foods are substituted for higher-calorie ones. For example, you can replace high-fat and high-calorie foods with dahl without losing satiety.

Compared to women who ate white bread for lunch, those who replaced chana dal for it lost more weight. These findings imply that chana dal helps regulate weight by lowering food consumption, which makes sense. 

As a result, you'll be less hungry when you eat next. You also reduce your intake of calories as a consequence. For a whole diet makeover, deals can also be incorporated.

Which Dal Is Ideal For Losing Weight?

Moong dal is the finest for losing weight, is the response to the query. 

A "natural weight reduction food," moong has been dubbed for its abundance of healthful components. Because it doesn't weigh you down and is accessible to the digestive system, it is perfect for vegetarians and people of all ages.

The high protein and fibre content of moong increases the satiety hormone cholecystokinin, which prolongs feelings of fullness and decreases cravings for junk food.

Does Dal Khichadi Help You Lose Weight?

Any dal can produce khichdi, a simple-to-digest, high-fiber, low-fat, low-calorie, well-balanced lunch. It prolongs feelings of fullness, which helps you eat less and better control your weight. Therefore, adding khichdi to your diet is a terrific idea if you're attempting to lose weight.

However, it's crucial to consider the kind of khichdi you consume and how much of each component you consume. Numerous more ingredients can help with weight loss in addition to dahl.

The Final Say

Dal is a nutrient-dense dish because of its high protein and fibre content. However, some individuals may find it unhealthy due to the ingredients and cooking methods. Furthermore, because it is relatively complete, dal is a beautiful dish to eat to lose weight.

Every household makes dal differently. When making dal, some people like to use a lot of butter and oil, while others like to use very little or none at all. The preparation method of dal can significantly impact its calorie content. Any variety of dal could be a tasty and nourishing supplement to your diet.

About ToneOP

TONEOP is a platform dedicated to improving and maintaining good health through a comprehensive range of goal-oriented health plans with up to 3 Coach support. With a range of Weight Management, Medical Condition and Detox Plans, the app also provides premium health trackers, recipes, and health content know more. Get customised diet, fitness, naturopathy & yoga plans and transform yourself with ToneOp. 

Explore More:-

Download ToneOp

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.toneop.mobile

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/toneop/id1586794292

[aviolentindustrialcomplex]

ERIN’S TARGETED ADS

Over the past month I have collected my unprompted targeted advertisements. Unprompted ads are ads for products or services that I did not previously search for. For example, I was looking for eyeglasses recently, so all Warby Parker and EZContacts ads were omitted. I have chosen three ads to look into and analyze. 

The first advertisement that jumped out at me was a weight loss gummy called “Oprah’s Keto + AVC GUMMIES.” In the ad, Oprah stands in front of a Weight Watchers, a company for whom she famously declared her love of bread. The ad promotes losing 60 pounds over the course of 60 days while taking these gummies. According to CNN, Oprah has nothing to do with these gummies and “I don’t want you all taken advantage of by people misusing my name.” For me, weight loss ads really suck. I am a person who struggles with disordered eating and sensitivity to textures, so food is already not super slaying. Weight loss ads, to me, just further remind me of the grip that the wellness and weight loss industry has on my personal eating choices. I never have a meal without considering the repercussions of consuming those specific foods. 

Three days later I received a LaserAway ad for CoolSculpting, a commercialized process for the removal of “stubborn fat cells.” The medical term for the process, which became FDA approved in 2010, is cryolipolysis. Because fat cells freeze at a higher temperature than skin cells, the machine is able to destroy 20-25% of the fat cells in the affected area. Although it is not a process for losing weight, many perceive cool sculpting as a quick and easy way to slim down. The ad was pink and the device was being used on a woman. It is not hard to assume women are the main target of this advertisement, especially in a world where women are consistently targeted by ads like the first one. Personally, I don't think I would ever consider CoolSculpting, but I understand why someone would. The reward for being thinner is not only social, but thin people make more money and face less discrimination because of their size. Airports, movie theaters, school desks, and small hallways all become more accessible the thinner you are. I really don’t level any judgment to individuals who choose to pursue the service, it’s just not for me. 

On March 16th I received one of many ads (that are definitely working on me) for Loop earplugs. The specific ad was marketed toward those “TRIGGERED BY NOISE?” and was clearly geared towards neurodivergent teens and young adults. This was particularly interesting and kind of exciting because I so rarely see mainstream products that help with sensory overstimulation. The product is not flashy and distracting like a fidget spinner, it is small and meant to be forgotten about. I know it is just a way to reach a new market, but products that are developed for neurodivergents that are small and discreet are really valuable. I am unsurprised that I was personally targeted by this ad, simply because I am a neurodivergent young adult who goes to concerts. Reviews have been positive, reviewers saying that the earplugs are comfortable and effective

Overall, my targeted ads are really hit-or-miss in terms of getting me to convert to purchasing them. I would never purchase the first two, but they do capitalize on the fears and insecurities of my demographic (AFAB 20 year olds). I don’t have intense weight insecurities (there’s a little, don’t get me wrong), but ads like that definitely heighten any existing insecurities. It has been a while since I received a NOOM ad but the feeling is the same. I get tense about my eating for the rest of the day. The Loops give me a little hope for my targeted ads not making me want to cry. 

[concerningwolves]

I'm still wrestling with this, and there isn't really an easy answer, but I've managed to distil my feelings into some key points:

I don't think the fatphobia was deliberate or malicious, and I also feel like Gadd did try to skirt around or soften some of it (one of the first things his narration does is criticise the fact he immediately felt sorry for Martha when he first saw her!). But Gadd is also a thin guy, and has the privilege of thinness, which means there are aspects of fatphobia that he's going to be oblivious to.

There are no ""good"" main characters in this show. Everyone is flawed and complex, and I like that! And because nobody is really "in the right" at any point, the impact of Martha being fat and an antagonist is lessened – but it still has an impact.

The issue with Baby Reindeer is less about the show as an individual piece of art, and more about how it slots into an overarching narrative about fat people. (There's an article which really illustrates this, but I'll come back to that).

I don't think there is ever a point when Donny or one of his friends explicitly derides Martha's appearance because she's fat. It's more implied by the fact that Donny makes it clear his compliments were only "banter" (i.e., that it's kind of silly to assume they could be anything but banter). You could equally interpret this disinterest in Martha as a result of the age gap, her personality, some combination thereof – or maybe he just... wasn't into her, and it wasn't any deeper than that. There are also moments where the audience is led to understand Donny's empathy for Martha based on assumptions about her appearance, like the bit where the camera focuses on her sitting alone at the bar while Donny's voiceover theorises about there being dances that nobody invited her to. There's this immediate implication of Martha being, in some way, an outcast or socially undesirable. You could interpret it as quite a number of things – because she's not conventionally attractive, because she's poor, because she's fat, because she's mentally ill, because she's uncouth, because she's "weird". These are all things that people are very much made outcasts for! But the camera work, hair, makeup, costume and lighting do accentuate the ways in which she isn't conventionally attractive, and that feeds into (and is fed by) social assumptions about fat bodies as inherently gross, pitiable or undesirable.

I've seen responses to fatphobia criticisms about BR saying that Jessica Gunning was cast as Martha because she's a phenomenal actor, and not because she's fat, and not because the woman who was allegedly Gadd's real-life stalker was fat too. (And I do have to stress allegedly, because the joe public are never going to know the whole truth of this situation and tbh I don't think people should be speculating about it). I wholeheartedly agree that Gunning is a phenomenal actor but here's where we circle back to the design and production choices. Martha is obviously poor and she's not well, which is to say she's not going to be turning out looking like Jessica Gunning at her best on the red carpet.

But i feel like, consistently, her appearance was emphasised as ""ugly"", especially when you compare her to.... basically every other person in the show, but especially the other women. Teri, Keeley and Keeley's mum all get "flattering" makeup, clothes that fit, camera lighting that compliments them. It really makes Martha stand out.

The coffee shop scene was when that something not right feeling started to niggle at me, actually. Look at this shot. The focal point is on her and Donny, and she is significantly bigger than literally anyone else visible on screen.

The only other named fat character in the series is Gino, who gets called a "fat prick", and he's still notably smaller than Martha. Extras, like in that coffee shop scene, are (as far as I remember) generally on the thin to average side, as are all the other people Donny is shown having relationships with. I've said this so many times over my years here, but if you're going to have a marginalised antagonist, you can't have them be the only character marginalised in that way. If nothing else, having more people who are visibly fat/ugly/disabled/whatever is never a bad thing. This is where I feel like the show really fell down.

The makeup, too. She wears bright pink lipstick and bold eyeshadow a few times, and it's clearly meant to look jarring and badly-done. Which is obviously predicated on beauty standards that women are meant to meet.

And again, I fully acknowledge that Martha is, beyond everything else, mentally unwell and struggling, so she won't look as put-together. (And because this is Tumblr: no I'm not saying women can't wear whatever makeup they want or that they can't not wear makeup). I'm saying that hair and makeup made a deliberate choice here, for a deliberate reason, and I don't like what that choice implies. As soon as you use any aspect of someone's appearance to make a point about them personally, you open up the door for some pretty ugly stuff.

At the end of the day, I'm not fat. I'm one of those people who was chronically underweight and ill and got complimented for being thin while I was dangerous underweight, and now I get fatphobic comments about my belly fat when I'm finally a healthy weight. So, while I'm deeply conscious of harmful rhetoric around fatness and weight and health, I do have thin privilege. So maybe some of my feelings about Martha's presentation stem from my own internalised biases, which is a prospect I'm open to. There are fat people, however, and fat women specifically, who have watched this show and been deeply triggered by its depiction of fatness. The comment section on this article, Why Does Baby Reindeer's Martha have to be Fat?, stands as testament to that.

Are Gadd and the rest of production team responsible for people's reactions? Well... no, not wholly. An artist can't prevent anyone being upset by their art, ever, and especially not when you're handling really tricky subject matter like Baby Reindeer does. And yes of course, this is a semi-autobiographical story. Martha is based on a real person. Real people can't be ""bad"" representation. The problem is that Gadd and his team made certain choices in how Martha was presented and how her fictionalised character is handled. There's a precedent for fat antagonists whose fatness is used as shorthand for their immorality, and, intentionally or not, Baby Reindeer continues that narrative.

I was watching Baby Reindeer with mum after several people have recommended it by saying it's funny/moving/gripping, and I just... There was just something about this that really wasn't sitting right with me. Like, I get that this is meant to be an uncomfortable story & that I'm not very good at understanding comedy, so the fact I'm not finding it funny is a non-criticism. And I think it's the kind of story that should be told, and it's making some really poignant points about the double standards men face when dealing with supposedly gendered violence.

But then I realised that the only fat named character in it (so far – just finished episode 3) is Martha, the stalker. She's dressed in ""unflattering"" clothes. She has an ""ugly"" laugh. We're very obviously meant to think she's unattractive and undesirable, even outside of the fact that she's stalking and harassing someone. The story stresses that she's mentally ill and should be seen with empathy, even though what she did is heinous – a view that afaik the writer felt about his real life stalker – but.. it also seems to punch down at her by framing the root of her "delusion" as the belief she could ever be desirable. Instead of, y'know, the belief that a guy who was nice to her once is now her boyfriend. Maybe this is deliberately edgy or satiracle humour that I'm just not getting, but it very much feels like fatphobia to me.

[star-anise]

Putting the Great Corset Debate in context

TW: Body image, diet culture, calorie counts, fatphobia, coercive beauty standards

Gold star to @ryuutchi for guessing the gist of this post!

Historical costumers today are very big on defending corsets. Like a lot of other re-enactors, I know firsthand that corsets can be comfortable, practical garments that can be worn all day, every day, for years, through all kinds of strenuous activity.

Karolina Zebrowska has documented how much anti-corset sentiment was a product of misogyny; Bernadette Banner has talked about growing up in a medical brace more restrictive than a corset; I’ve used corsetry techniques to make garments to deal with my own chronic pain, and make chest binding less uncomfortable.

And yet. There’s an undeniable wealth of evidence that many women in days of old hated corsets. So how the heck do we reconcile these things?

Let’s talk about diets.

A diet is, in its simplest form, what you eat during your day. Or it’s a plan for what you’ll eat during your day. Diets can be hugely varied. The ideal diet for a performance athlete is often around 5000-7000 calories a day, which is the same amount of food that two to five ordinary people will eat in the same period of time. Some diets are very gentle and flexible, encouraging intuitive eating and listening to your own hunger cues much more than any chart. Victorian diets actually promised to fatten women, relieving their consumers from the hideous fate of skinniness.

And yet. And yet. For many people, especially women, “diet” is an enormously loaded word. It’s practically synonymous with restricting your food intake until you’re a little bit crazy, constantly criticizing the way you look, and tying your weight with your worthiness as a person.

That’s not how I generally experience diets, since I was never forced to diet, and never seriously dieted myself. But if I said, “Diets for women aren’t restrictive or oppressive!” I’d be quite frankly wrong, given how often they are--how much women face incredible pressure to be thin, how often girls are forced to diet during their childhoods and adolescences, how much fat women are penalized in completely unrelated areas, like salary and career progression, for their weight.

Diets don’t have to be restrictive or oppressive. But in our day, it is hard to untangle the concept from how coercive diets can be. For many people, “dieting” feels inextricable from being controlled.

Corsets fundamentally served the same function as dieting does now. It alters the body’s shape to appear more socially pleasing. It does so by different methods, but in the era when it was widespread, it carried a similar psychological weight.

This is how Laura Ingalls Wilder describes her experiences with corsets: Of being forced to wear them by her mother, being nagged  by her mother to tighten her laces, having to listen to stories of how her mother, as a young bride, had a waist her husband could span with his hands--an ideal painful and impractical to reach under most circumstances, and a positive hindrance for a girl like Laura, who had to do heavy farm labour in that corset. In the Victorian era, uncorseted women were seen as everything from lazy and sloppy to sexually loose and morally inferior.

Modern movie actresses face the same pressure to look absolutely perfect. A lot of actresses complain about the corsets in their costumes for good reasons: Those corsets are made with only the sketchiest reference to the actress’s real measurements, engineered hugely for aesthetic effect, and worn for a very abrupt span of time without the lead-up of getting used to the corset (and letting the corset get used to you). I have no doubt that being shoved into a corset that changes your shape dramatically and being told, “Go on, get out there and act,” is an uncomfortable experience!

These days, historical re-enactors don’t face as much social pressure or censure for failing to corset tightly enough. A lot of us are wearing costumes in an increasing atmosphere of fat acceptance and health at every size. Those of us who make our own costumes can experience historical costume as the one area in our lives where our clothes are made purely to our own measure--we have all the control that’s denied us by mass-produced modern clothing sizes.

Here’s my contention: It’s not the corset, or the lack of corset, the diet, or lack of diet, that makes corsets or diets awful, painful, harmful, or oppressive. It is the social pressure to push your body past the point of discomfort or pain to achieve certain a social idea. Corsets are so liberating for historical re-enactors specifically because we get the profound freedom of deciding everything about what we wear and how we want to look.

If you have the complete freedom, if you want to wear a corset, to choose the corset that’s right for you, or even more, to have it made for you, corsets are amazing garments. Just like figuring out which foods are right for you, eating them, and feeling good because of it can be a great experience.

It’s achieving that freedom that’s the hard part.

[bunnys-beetlejuice-blog]

been a while since i posted a fic update! anyone wanna read some cowboy au nonsense? sure you do! well here it is

The blinding, unforgiving midday heat is enough to raise blisters on the skin. Looking out over a crowd of folks booing him, calling for his demise, probably should have had some kind of emotional impact. On the occasion of one’s death, after all, one does expect tears. Flowers, laid out in lace, dark veils and coal black clothes, a few muffled sobs from those further back in the funerary procession, unable to contain themselves. Instead he’s met with the dusty faces of former neighbors and strangers alike, all eagerly waiting to hear the exact tone and pitch that his neck will make when it snaps.

Bored, he turns his attention from the crowd, and watches a lizard scurry across the wooden planks of the gallows, as a man to his right fits a rough bit of rope around his neck. It scratches, but he doesn’t react, not feeling frightened or even especially interested. A similar rough twine is binding his hands together behind his back, keeping him from having any viable way to save himself. The crowd is calling for blood now. Hangings generally are not gorey affairs, but he did once see a drop too sudden and a rope so long that the fella wasn’t just hung, he was decapitated. Beetlejuice glances back down at the crowd, tries to imagine what direction his head would roll if that happened here, and smirks, because it seems to him the last thing he’d see would be the view from inside the skirts of some of the women standing front and center. Not the worst last sight a man could have. “You think you could hurry this along?” he asks the man fitting the noose around his neck. “Sun’s beatin’ down somethin’ fierce an’ I ain’t got my hat.” His personal possessions are back at the sheriff’s office- hat, bandana, silver plated, pearl handled pistol, and his custom belt buckle, just about the nicest, and maybe only, thing he ever paid for. God damn corrupt lawman’s probably gonna pawn his stuff as soon as he’s swinging. Maybe before. Maybe his last worldly possessions are already gone. S’not like he’ll need them, where he’s goin.

A face he recognizes is led up from the crowd, an ancient wizened body tanned for years by the all too eager sunlight and scorching sands. It’s the local preacher, who he remembers from his formative years. The old man used to give him bread and plain, unseasoned chicken in return for listening to him talk about god, and if he hadn’t been nearly starved to death half the time, he might have spat in the old man’s face. Shouldn't charity be done for the sake of charity, not proselytizing? He’d said so once, and that was the last meal the old miser had given him. Jackass.

“Beetlejuice,” the preacher begins. His name is said with disdain and a curled upper lip. It’s one of the reasons he chose it, honestly. “You still have time to repent, young man. I remember you, as a child, bright eyed, curious about the kingdom of heaven.” Well now, that’s the very definition of taking artist liberty. “Now, here, you have one more chance to repent, to accept god’s mercy, and avoid the lake of fire.” The crowd is watching, waiting to see if he will confess his remorse. Beetlejuice hums, rocks on the balls of his feet, and then sighs. “.. C’mere,” He mumbles, jerking his head to indicate the old man should step closer. The holy man does. “I got a lot to confess to, preacher man, an’ not much time.” His voice is soft. The ailing man can’t hear him, steps closer, if only a little. “So much to confess to, in fact, I oughta just… Skip th’ whole thing an’ go straight to hell!” And Beetlejuice reels back, and then slams his forehead into the old man’s face. The sickeningly satisfying crunch of cartilage tells him he’s broken the preacher’s nose, as the elderly man falls back, crying out in pain, blood gushing from his new wound. The crowd roars, furious, and he grins, and laughs. “Ain’t no good extendin’ your pious pity to me!” he calls, gleeful, as he’s pelted with whatever the people watching can get their hands on, and the old man is helped, taken away, led off of the platform. “Enough, enough, we will have order!” a lawman cries, coming up the gallow steps, to stand in front of the outlaw. It’s enough to get the crowd to settle, or at least stop throwing things. There’s still a bad energy in the air, which Beetlejuice can taste on the tip of his tongue. His smile is rictus, he’s delighted to be the cause of it all.

“This man has been tried and found guilty,” the lawman continues. The trial had been very short, and his incarceration shorter. He understands he’s being made an example of to other outlaws, bandits, and trouble makers. They intentionally didn’t give him any time to plan anything, or for any coconspirators to come and assist him. Joke’s on them. They could have taken all the time in the world. Ain’t nobody alive who cares for this outlaw. Not a soul who would dare to come and stage a rescue. He’s utterly alone. “He’s allowed his last words. Clearly,” the lawman turns, eyes Beetlejuice, who smiles flirtatiously. The other man’s expression shifts from annoyance to disgust. “He’s disavowed the advice of Pastor Neighbors.” “M’not so sure you’re usin’ that word right, friend,” Beetlejuice snorts, but he’s ignored. “Any last words?” the hangman to his right asks, his hand itching to grip the lever that will drop the floor and finally, finally, release the outlaw from the confines of mortal life.

Beetlejuice grins.

“If any of you have a message for th’ devil, give it to me!” he shouts, with a cackle, and he watches in rapt and morbid delight at the way the faces in the crowd twist. “I’ll carry it down to hell for you!” The crowd is furious enough it almost seems to him they’re going to storm the platform, and maybe beat him to death. The wave of gasps from the women folk is particularly amusing.

“Enough of this!” He hears the voice of the lawman, disgusted, and the hangman must agree, because the last thing he hears is the lever being thrown, and the floor gives out under him, and he’s falling, falling, falling.

His ass hits a chair.

There’s a moment of blinded confusion, because he's gone from the unbearable dusty sun of midday California, to a cool, dark, musty smelling interior. His eyes need a moment to adjust to the change. He’s sitting in a room he doesn’t recognize. The chair under him is plush, but just thin seated enough to be a tad uncomfortable. He squirms in it, confused, and finds his hands are still tied behind his back. He turns his head. Seated across from him is a young woman.. Well, little girl might be more accurate, she’s maybe fourteen. There’s a wicked looking hoofprint emblazoned on her right temple. The blood that’s leaking from the wound has gone a sickly old color. They stare at each other. “Did that hurt?” she asks, first, and he squints, because he’d been about to ask the same question. Her hand has gone to her throat, as she looks at him, and he looks down, pressing his fat face into his fat neck to create an unflattering double chin as he does so. He can feel the rope around his neck. He follows the line of it with his eyes, and turns to look up. The rope travels up from him, into the ceiling. It’s still taught, like he’s suspended by it, but his ass is touching chair, his boots are on the ground, and he doesn’t feel choked by it’s presence. He tuts. “Didn’t feel a thing. That hurt?” he tries to gesture to her wound, but again, he’s reminded his hands are bound behind him. She stands. “Hurt a bit, but then I got so dizzy I didn’t hardly feel it, after,” she tells him, and then, like the good little frontierswoman she is, she produces a knife from inside some pocket in the volume of her skirts, and gratefully, he leans forward. She rests a knee on one of the chairs, to get a better angle, as she uses her bowie to cut through the rope at his wrists. “Awful kind of you, half pint,” he tells her, and she smiles. “Ain’t nothin.” She settles into the chair next to him, which is a little surprising, but he doesn’t mind, over all. “You’re an outlaw, then?” she asks. He grunts, and then turns to face her, with a grin. “You probably heard of me. They called me Th’ Ghost, on occasion, cause I could slip away without bein’ caught-” he watches her eyes travel up the line of his noose, and then settle back on his face, a little less impressed than she ought to be. He responds by pinching her nose, and she swats at his hand, and laughs. “I do think I heard of you,” she concedes. “I’m Presley.” “Presley, alright. You got a clue where we are, kiddo?” “I just was told to wait.” “Told by who?”

Across the room, a window he hadn’t registered as being there slides open. This place vaguely resembles a bank, he realizes, and so that means that’s the teller’s window. A woman with a tired expression on a pretty face peers out at him. ��Hey, dead beat,” she calls, her accent thick around the words. “Juno wants to see you.” He motions to himself, questioningly. She raises an eyebrow in silent confirmation. “Should I care?” he asks, and her upper lip curls in the most beautiful version of a sneer he’s ever seen. “You’re real funny. Get in there before she loses her temper.” And she reaches up, and slams the window shut.

He looks to Presley, and they both share a little shrug, before he stands, and takes a step. The rope going through the ceiling moves with him, not along any visible track, that he can see, but seeming rather more like a toy balloon on a string, bobbing along as though after a child winding their way through the crowd of a state fair. There’s a door by the teller’s window, and he makes for it, only for the window to slide open again, and that beautiful face to reappear. She looks him over, not seeming particularly impressed, but also not outright cruel. “Where’s your handbook?” she asks. Beetlejuice tilts his head. It lolls a little comically to one side, presumably because his neck is broken. She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. “You can’t be serious. You didn’t bring your handbook?” “Listen, lady, even if I had whatever book you’re talkin about, I couldn’t read it,” he counters, and she pauses, at that. “Illiterate. Of course. What’s even the point of the handbook when so many folks can’t read it?” she mutters to herself, and then she waives him at the door, the conversation apparently over. Alright.

The door, predictably, leads to a hallway, a bit unlike anything he’s ever seen before, in terms of sheer length of the thing. It twists around like a snake, and the number of doors along the hall leads him to believe wherever he is, it’s massive. The hallway is empty, save for a man at the far end, mopping, and there doesn’t seem to be anything around for him to tuck into his pockets. Too bad, he mopes, as he carries himself down the hall, boots clacking in a way he finds tactile and pleasant. He passes the custodian, who stares at the floor behind him and sighs, and Beetlejuice looks back to see a mess of dusty footprints he’s left on a previously slightly damp but otherwise pristine floor. With a snort, he spits into the bucket of mop water, and the other man jumps back, disgusted, as Beetlejuice cackles, and continues his leisurely walk down the hall.

At a certain point he realizes he’s got no idea where he’s going, but it doesn’t especially matter. Wherever he is now, whatever version of the afterlife this is, because clearly, that’s what this is, it doesn’t seem to be fire and brimstone and all that bullshit, so he takes it easy, opening doors at random and peeking through. The things he sees don’t always make sense to him, feel like they’re out of place from the world as he knows it. He opens one door, and suddenly he’s staring at what must be a city, but the buildings are so tall they’re touching the sky, going up past the clouds, up into the heaven he doesn’t believe can really be up there. The people are dressed strangely, men and women wandering around in little more than underclothes, which he likes, instantly, and the streets are black with painted yellow lines, instead of dust and earth. Some kind of metal.. Something, a trolley without a track, moves on it’s own down the street, and he catches a glimpse of faces inside. He gets lost in the contents of this door, staring for a long time, entranced, and then it’s slammed suddenly. He turns, catches sight of the custodian with his hand on the door, and growls, an animalistic sound he didn’t know he could do. And then he stops, and turns to look, because the custodian is still a ways behind him, mopping with spit water. It’s the same man. “You don’t need to go poking your snout into places it doesn’t belong,” the man says, simply, and then in a blink, both versions of him are gone from the hallway. Maybe that’s just an… afterlife thing.

He reaches, after what feels like a boring and dragging eternity of twenty whole minutes, a set of saloon doors, the swinging kind. There’s a void of blackness behind them, but the draw he feels is unmistakable, and he pushes them open, and walks through. Instead of a room black as ink, he finds himself… standing on the wooden porch of a bar he remembers frequenting fairly often, in his younger days. At least, he has clear memories of walking into the bar. How and when and why he ended up outside of it, well… whiskey has a hell of an effect on a man’s memory. It’s a fairly chilly desert night. The chirping of crickets and the long ways away lonely baying of a dog is a sort of familiar comfort, but god damn it, he’s just left this world. He wasn’t intending on coming back to it, ever. The dusty streets are dim, illuminated only by the moon, the stars, and the few lamps still burning in windows. The town is quiet.

On the dirt road in front of him is a woman, staring at him. She’s small, older, nicely dressed, with hair shorter than he’s ever seen on a lady, and a mouth sort of like a toad, long and downturned. There’s an unlit cigarette between her fingers. She’s watching him, curious and apathetic all at once. He returns the look. “Juno, then?” he grunts, stepping off the porch. No dust lifts when his boots hit the unpaved road, which he notes. Maybe he’s not really here. Maybe he’s a ghost. Fitting.

“Lawrence “Beetlejuice” Shoggoth,” she says, as he comes to stand in front of her. “Took you long enough. You realize I’ve been waiting here for days. You get lost, or something?” Her tone is sharp, like a schoolmarm with too much on her hands and not enough energy for it all. He feels a little sheepish, if only because no, he hadn’t realized that. “Gimme a break,” he says, instead of an apology. “I just died.” “Like that makes you special,” she huffs, and then, waving her unlit cigarette in his face, machine rolled, not hand, he notes, she asks, “Have you got a match?” He produces one from one of the many pockets of his moss green duster, strikes it on his thumb, and holds it up for her. She has the decency to look grateful, as she leans in, cigarette to her lips, and lights it from that little flame. “So,” she exhales smoke, and it curls from the corner of her lips, and out a previously unspotted slash to her throat. No wondering how she died, then. Speaking of, he glances up, to see that his noose is no longer floating above his head, and turning, he catches sight of it dragging on the ground behind him, long and snake-like in the way it’s twisted and coiled. Juno snaps her long red nails in his face, brings his attention back to her. “You weren’t supposed to die, you know. You’ve mucked things up for me.” “Whut?” he grunts, a bit thrown. She rubs her temples. “You were supposed to go in your seventies. Catch tuberculosis and wither away in obscurity. How old are you?” “Thirty four, or abouts,” he croaks, and she takes another drag. “You let yourself be caught,” she accuses. Well.. yeah. But how the hell does she know that? “I got pinned down in a shootout. Lucky they didn’t blow my head off, right then.” “You’ve gotten out of worse.” She looks almost.. Disappointed. “And then you put down your weapons, instead of fighting it out.” “I was surrounded.” “You were sloppy.” “What’s it to you, anyway?” he growls, again low and animalistic, which Juno ignores, as she walks circles around him, studying him. “You let yourself be caught, and you let yourself be hung. You didn’t even try to get away. You might not have killed yourself, but you let them kill you, for you,” she says. “And it’s giving me a hell of a time, both because it’s changed you, and because I have to put you somewhere, Beetlejuice, and now no one knows where you should go.” “So what does that mean?” “It means, my little statistical outlier, that you’re going to be staying up here, probably a lot broader a time than it would have taken you to just live your life and die at seventy,” she sighs, rubbing at her forehead. “Which is a shame. Because.. I was looking forward to.. To you. And now we both have to wait longer,” and here, she finishes her circle of him, to stand face to face with him again, and she flicks his ear, the way he always imagined an frustrated mother might. “Because you gave up. You weren’t supposed to give up.” “Wasn't much worth livin’ for,” he says, and it’s got more emotion behind it than he meant to give it. Juno’s hand goes to her throat, and she looks pained. “I guess that’s an inherited trait,” her voice is soft, and he squints at her, confused. Instead of giving him any context for that, she points down the dusty main road. Shining under the moonlight, he can see, vaguely, a dark shape suspended in air, near the gallows. “Go put your suit back on,” she says dryly. “And try not to cause enough trouble that I have to come up here and get after you, understood?” “What part of outlaw ain’t you gettin?” he snorts, and she responds by giving him an affectionate pat to his scruffy cheek, before she takes another drag, and vanishes inside the swirling smoke. He’s left standing on his own.

His “suit” is still hanging, he notes, looking up at himself. He’s strung up on a tall pole by the platform, leaving it free for more use, if need be, with his body on display as a gruesome reminder for potential criminals that this is a hanging town, and they’ve even hung their most despised son. His neck is bent at an ugly angle, a little bulge at the side betraying how exactly his bones had shattered, and his skin has gone a bad color, gray and foul looking. But aside from that, he’s not rotted the way he would think he ought to be. Juno’d said she’d been waiting for days, presumably meaning it has been days since his death, but his body is looking remarkably unbuzzard pecked and unrotted. He shimmies up the pole he’s hung from, his ghostly noose trailing behind him, and the moment he touches his own boot, the world spins, going upside down and inside out in a way that’s too painful to try and perceive.

“Gahh-” says Beetlejuice, because he’s back in his body, which is still being hung by that god damn noose, and he realizes, annoyed, that he has no way of cutting himself down. He kicks, pointlessly, one hand going to the rope at his neck, to clutch it and try to keep it from choking himself again, and the other grabbing at the rope further up, gripping it to pull himself up, give himself some slack, instead of hanging taught. It’s not the most coordinated he’s ever been. At least there’s no one around to watch him struggle.

“Holy shit, the body’s movin!” he hears someone holler. Oh, come on.

Read the rest, right over HERE

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

Still thinking about the fact that the main character of my novel-in-progress is fat, and when I wrote a throwaway line with a brief mention of him working out, multiple women in one of my writing groups complained, "But I thought he was overweight."

Hello????? Enough with the myth that fat people are all sedentary! I've seen fat ballerinas, fat strongmen, fat baseball players, fat martial artists, and more. I have personally dated strong, active fat men.

I've also dated people of various body types who didn't work out. Guess what?? Not only would you be unable to guess which of my exes worked out and which didn't based on their body types, it never fucking mattered. Whether they worked out or not, it changed nothing about their character, our relationship, or how much I cared about them.

Words like "fat" and "thin" are just neutral descriptors of a person's appearance--they don't dictate one's health, beauty, morality, capacity to love and be loved, or anything else. And for the record? Not only does my fat MC work out in my book, he also gets the girl who is chased by many, and when he expresses his self-consciousness about his body, she's shocked that he doesn't realize how sexy he is and how much she wants him. I've had the exact same conversation IRL with people I've dated--people who were so blinded by our fatphobic society that they didn't realize how much I adored every part of them, inside and out. People who didn't realize that I truly didn't give a shit how much they weighed, I just wanted them.

Of course, my opinion can't change someone else's self-perception, because self-confidence isn't something a person simply hands to you. Nor should outside approval ever matter more than your own self-acceptance (that being said, if someone who claims to care about you is preoccupied with your physical appearance, their opinions matter in that their opinions make them assholes and you should ditch 'em. You are SO much more than your physical form).

But it's devastating to see someone who means the world to you accept less of your love than they deserve, purely because of their weight. As if the shape of their body could ever change the shape of their soul.

So, yeah. FUCK anyone who thinks any given fat person can't be just as attractive, smart, funny, kind, hard-working, desirable, charismatic, and successful as any given thin person. FUCK the myth that fat people don't work out, and more importantly, FUCK any misconception that your level of exercise has any bearing on who you are as a person. FUCK the fact that protagonists in media are virtually always thin when fat people equally deserve compassionate, balanced representation. And of course, as always,

-'*~ fuck fatphobia ~*'-

-Mod Lia

[hussyknee]

I didn't know that about the Gilded Age! Thank you for the correction and information! I thought the Gilded Age started around 1880, so the doll would have been reflective of the era immediately before. Also the Gilded Age is kind of a broad category when you think about it, because there was so much cultural shift happening between the end of the USAmerican Civil War and the Edwardian era. I used to be obsessed with Louisa May Alcott and L. M. Montgomery and even though their times overlapped, the writing, attitudes, lifestyles, everyday technology were so different. But the fatphobia and idealisation of small waists and association of "slender" with "girlish" was constant throughout. It made sense to me that the full figured hour glass silhouettes and bustles would have rolled into narrower skirts and less curvaceous ideals. But that must have happened a lot later then.

I also looked up a lot of beauties of the Edwardian era a while ago and "ethereal" was the buzzword I kept seeing. The models and dancers had slimmer figures than in the Victorian, but in a much more naturalistic way than ours. (I think corsets were gradually going out of fashion? I know there was a health concern around them even in Alcott's time, which had more to do with moral policing afaik). I got particularly stuck on Consuelo Vanderbilt (original poor little rich girl) who was considered a beauty and fashion icon, but she was a lot lankier and thinner than the full figured models of the 1800s. She looked close to modern standards of thinness. I don't know whether she was an outlier.

I think using clothing rather than dieting, as you said, is a key factor here. Because the shift towards a narrower and thinner body happened in tandem with fashion moving steadily away from seamstresses and tailors and into the standardized sizes of mass production and ready-made department stores. When diet pills became cheaper than sewing your own clothes and everyone started buying off the rack, modelling became about a figure that needed the least amount of fabric, and fast fashion became the money spinner. Ironically the modern fashionistas and celebrities biggest secret is that their clothes are adjusted and tailored to fit their bodies while us plebs are led to believe the only reason ours never fit right is because our bodies are the wrong proportions. Meanwhile women's clothes are purposely made to be less durable and functional than men's, just in case we don't chuck them when the trends change in the lifespan of a may fly. It's all about normalizing buying cheap mass produced shit and making home sewing and personal tailoring too pricey.

In South Asia however, traditional clothing keeps small time tailors and seamstresses in business. There's no such thing as an off the rack saree petticoat and jacket (I mean there is, but you'd have to be desperate lol); the fabric for it is sold with the saree and then you go to the small tailor shop next door, pick out a design and give your measurements. As a result, the sarees always look like they're "hiding a multitude of sins" as a white friend told me. They aren't hiding anything dude, it's the draping, and the saree jacket and petticoat giving the saree its shape. Because they're tailored. Also because we can pick out the jacket designs that suit our body type to go with the saree.

So are kurtas and shalwars and other South Asian clothes. Because of the way these clothing industries are structured, the fabric sellers and tailors have a symbiotic relationship. So it all stays affordable.

Unfortunately none of this means that South Asia is any less fatphobic. And even here, the fashion industry increasingly pushes European-ideal thin women to model sarees and kurtas. (Seriously I got so frustrated trying to find real fat models just now, even though the majority of our people are built wide hipped and heavy). But we do prefer a lot more meat on our bones than the West does.

buccal fat this, buccal fat that

this is what a Beautiful Lady DollTM c. 1880 looked like, from the regions where this ridiculous surgery is now becoming popular (namely, Europe/the U.S.):

(fashion doll by the Gesland firm, c. 1880, from my personal collection. I call her Marinette)

forget buccal fat removal; she’s a poster child for buccal fat augmentation. and a solid 99% of them are like that: moon-faced with little double-chins. this is the IDEAL, remember. this is basically their Barbie

it’s not that body shaming didn’t exist back then, mind; advertisements make it painfully clear. my point is more that beauty standards are a moving target. and on a more immediate level, to show women with similar faces that. somewhere in time, the majority of people in their culture considered plump cheeks the epitome of beauty