I’ve seen a fair amount of fat liberation activists explain that they have always been fat, they’re not about to stop, and that’s natural and beautiful and fine. That’s an incredibly important message.
What I’ve seen less - and what I want to remind people of - is this: if you’ve become fat, that’s also natural and beautiful and fine.
When you’re a fat person who has been thin in the past, that comes with its own brand of shaming. People take your history of thinness as proof that you don’t have to be fat. You often fear the look of disappointed surprise in the eyes of someone you haven’t met since you were thin. People try to determine “what happened”. They don’t see your fat body as just you, but as a sort of symptom that isn’t part of you.
Becoming fat is not a tragedy, it’s not a sign of failure, it’s not a bad or shameful thing. The thin you is not the Real you. You are always real and always worthy of freedom, respect and peace. You are allowed to be fat no matter how or when you became fat.
and you know what? there are cases where fatness is a symptom of disease or disability, but even then it’s not ugly or gross or a failure, and you’re not obligated to ‘fix’ it.
i find my fatness physically uncomfortable a lot of the time because it’s largely caused by inflammation and metabolic fuckery related to my bones being made of crumbly cheese. a lot of the time i feel like a raw chicken in a vacuum chamber. i don’t like it and i don’t have to, but that doesn’t stop me from accepting myself.
maybe a case could be made that the 'real me’ would be one in perfect health (in which case i’d be a much more solid kind of fat, a lot like maui in the disney movie, cuz that’s how my dad’s built), but you know what that is besides fatshamey? pretty damn ableist!
this is the me that i have, and i require respect and acceptance as a fully valid human being with agency and the right to exist, right here and now, as i am. sick or not. bloated or not.
when i changed anti-inflammatory meds and pissed out 25 pounds in a week, did i become 25 pounds more human? no. i just became a still-real-and-valid fat guy whose fingers bend better.
i guess what i’m trying to say here is, while it’s important to spread the word that fat isn’t inherently unhealthy, it’s also time, i think, for people to start understanding that that’s kinda beside the point? like, even in cases where it’s a symptom of poor health, that doesn’t mean anyone has the right to judge or disapprove or pry.
(it doesn’t mean medical professionals should focus on it to the exclusion of the real or central issue, either. a doctor thinking they should treat my bone disease with weight loss advice is like thinking they should treat lupus with skin care advice. for crying out loud. i’m embarrassed for them.)
I’m desperately craving more representation and celebration of fat butts that aren’t round and smooth and “perfect”.
Give me square butts. Give me bumpy butts with cellulite. Give me butts that look clenched when relaxed. Give me saggy butts. Give me butts that are big but flat. Give me old wrinkly butts. Let’s go!
the answer is not “complete desexualization of fat people” or “aggressive posting about how much we want to fuck this fat person” it’s actually a secret third thing called being normal
it’s so stupid that you can’t think your way out of the mental health trenches. like you can know exactly what is wrong, why it’s upsetting you, and you can walk yourself through all of it logically and Understand it but your brain just responds like
I think that Merrill would not be a satisfying victim of rickrolling or the game or deez nuts jokes because, even after she understands and is in on the joke, they simply do not phase her. however she is the QUEEN of making these types of jokes. she’ll never just randomly blurt out that she lost the game there’s always some sort of buildup or it’s woven into a story somehow. everyone falls for her rickrolls every time no matter how many times she does it. she’s the master and it is always funny
I also think that Merrill will have Hawke (especially purple!Hawke) explain their jokes to her then go “ohhhhh I get it now! aren’t jokes usually supposed to be funny though?” dealing approximately 8d10 psychic damage to Hawke immediately
and then the next day at the Hanged Man Merrill will recycle the exact joke Hawke told and everyone will laugh, dealing Hawke a further 2d10 psychic damage
now that i’m older and understand how absolutely fucked the housing market is, all those horror movies that take place in nice houses where the family refuses to leave make sense. if i had a 4,000sqft vintage home you’d need to kill me before i ever moved out as well. fuck the ghost. charge it rent.
