#body issues tw

[marzipanandminutiae]

she's never going to read this, but it's still interesting

so the person with the extremely cold corset takes last night has now decided that dress history folks are straight-up lying about the purpose of corsets. because we just love them so much, I guess?

she found this ad:

and therefore knows corsets were Totally About Waist Reduction First And Foremost, Always And Forever, Amen

I have. some thoughts.

the main one being that nobody claimed corsets were never used to waist-train back then

the secondary one being that many ads for "form-reducing corsets," at least the ones that I found, make a distinction between "normal" corsets and their product:

It's a specialty product, not what the average woman is wearing on a daily basis. Is its existence messed up? Yes! But nobody has been disputing that pressure on women to look a certain way, and fatphobia, are awful. The issue in question is: was the primary function of an average (in this case Victorian/Edwardian) corset waist reduction? It seems to me that the ad supplied- again, for a specialty garment that was not seen as an ordinary corset -does not prove OP's point.

so let's look at some ordinary corset ads, shall we?

(don't freak out too much about the "baby/child corsets"- I've worked with extant examples many times, and they're just lightly stiffened vests. you couldn't lace a kid down in them if you tried- not that you should, obviously)

(Pliability, elasticity, comfort- but no mention of waist reduction as a selling point)

(this one is an unusual design, but I'm including it because it mentions support- and specifically breast support -not once, but twice. It also instructs ladies to measure their waists OUTSIDE their clothing- which will result in a larger measure even than we commonly use for custom corsets nowadays. note that a 2" lacing gap was common, per a corsetiere quoted in Valerie Steele's The Corset: A Cultural History)

(Flexibility and comfort, yet again.)

(Rather a ridiculous one, including the implication that you need an elegant corset to snare a husband and therefore economic security and love, but the bottom left text says "What an improvement the Madam Warren corset. And how comfortable.")

so we've clearly got comfort, support, and ease of movement at the forefront of the average consumer's mind, for so many ads to mention such thing. a number also don't have much text at all:

(The Celebrated EEE is my hypothetical burlesque name, but I digress.)

of the first twenty random ads that come up when I do an image search for "corset advertisement," eleven mention health and/or comfort, and only one directly mentions waist reduction- while advertising, again, a separate specialty "reducing" corset.

am I saying it never happened? absolutely not. I have NEVER been saying that. tightlacing did happen. obviously reducing corsets existed. I would not deny any of this

am I saying that, clearly, support and comfort were thought so high on the average corset-wearer's priority list that manufacturers played to those attributes more than waist reduction when constructing/advertising corsets, implying that they are NOT, in fact, the same thing as a Kim K waist cincher? yes

(file under: things I cannot believe I have to fucking say, and yet here we are)

[iconsumethesoulsofthedamned]

‼️ALERRRRTTTT ‼️

If you're dating someone and you EVER tell them that you wish they were skinnier and that they should be skinner THEN FUCK YOU YOURE A TERRIBLE PARTNER I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE.

IF YOU EVER TELL SOME ONE ELSE that you wish your partner were skinnier behind their back then FUCK YOU ASSHOLE.

If you really cared about them and weren't a disgusting jerk then you'd love them NO MATTER WHAT body type they had and you wouldn't make them feel like shit for something thats natural and not their fault.

And to anyone whom this has happened too not only are you beautiful just the way you are smaller or bigger. I am going to fight them for you and don't you dare ever forget that your body is GODDAMN PERFECT your partner was just a selfish bitch.

[saikyo-rat]

Something from a dream I had.

(this takes place at a fancy party being held at the Kanzuki estate.)

Birdie: “Are you going to ea' anything?”

Decapre: “No…”

Birdie: “Why not? it’s no' like it’s going to kill you!”

Decapre: “I can’t break the rules of my diet, I have to keep my body in top shape…”

Birdie: “Don’' tell me you believe in tha' rubbish!”

Decapre: “It’s a rule that shadaloo gave me…”

Birdie: “IF SHADALOO TOLD YOU TO JUMP OFF A CLIFF WOULD YOU DO IT?”

(Decapre goes silent and starts to cry.)

Birdie: “I’m sorry for yelling a' you…it’s jus' i hate to see you starving yourself because of the rulessy of someone who is dead…”

Decapre(sobbing): “I-I know that B-Bison’s dead…a-and that shadaloo is g-gone……b-but I can’t let go of the past…………a-and I wish that I could.”

Birdie: “I understand wha' you mean bu' focusing on i' is only going to make i' harder for you to do i'.”

(Decapre continues to cry as Birdie pats her on the back)

Birdie: “Thosessy blokessy in shadaloo are gone now, so you don’' have to worry abou' them telling you wha' to do.”

Decapre(having calmed down a bit): “I think I am a bit hungry…”

Birdie: “That’s the spirit! Now go ge' some grub for yourself! I' doesn’' have to be as much as i usually ea' bu' you should jus' ea' as much as wha' makessy you feel happy!”

Decapre: “Thank you…”

(Decapre gets herself a small plate of food and starts the path of a long journey of recovery and self discovery.)

[morvantmortuary]

Heyy, I just wanted to ask you this question because it’s been bothering me for a long time. Do you think the Morvants would love still love their reader if they were ugly? I know that ugly is a word that is thrown around a lot but I mean it. Someone who is not conventionally attractive at all, who is not the desired version of plus size. Someone who has a big tummy, big thighs but not a round ass. Someone who is fat not thick. Someone who is not wanted by anyone. Would the Morvants still love them? Someone like me? I’m sorry if this is depressing I just can’t get out of my head and I hate the thought of my comfort people not loving me. Either way thank you for bringing them to life and letting us read about them ❤️❤️

I'm sorry this took me so long, sweetheart -- I've been caught between coordinating ongoing events at work with a whole learning curve, dissertation prep, and then a migraine swept my feet out from under me this morning, so I've just been trying to get my shit back together lmao. but I've been thinking about it since you sent it in. <3 I almost wanted to save this to be part of something I'm going to try to do coming up, (*knocking loudly on wood*), but I didn't want to leave you hanging.

short answer first to alleviate any anxiety: yes, absolutely, 100% without a doubt. once you're their person, you are their person, and nothing will change that -- not aging, or weight shifting, or any of the things that come with having a body and being mortal, okay?

I'll put the rest under a cut, because you got me talking a little on something I'm kind of sensitive about too <3

allow me a quick digression: from a doylist perspective, I'm writing the Morvants as someone who's definitely also on the curved stomach/big thighs/plush upper arms/saggy boobs side of things, along with some really frustrating skin that's prone to breakouts at the drop of a hat and other things about myself that lowkey stress me out on the daily. and we are just as worthy of love and desire and affection as anyone else, I promise you. <3 you do not have to be society's idea of beautiful to be worthy of love, or to be a good person. I'm sure you already know this, but I'm repeating it specifically just so you hear it, okay?

"ugly" is entirely subjective -- I'm also someone who isn't conventionally attractive, shall we say -- but I know we are our own meanest critics. I won't fight you on the word if it's one you've embraced, as I know everyone has a different relationship with it, but I will say I bet you're not giving yourself enough credit, honey. people do not have to be conventionally pretty to be worthy of love or a good life, I cannot emphasize that enough. we both deserve that, and we’re gonna get it, goddammit.

and you know something else? conventionally pretty changes every couple decades, and imho usually kind of sucks anyway. I think of being "ugly" as being memorable, distinct. we will never be duplicated, or in danger of looking like everyone else in our time. we're both a manifestation of history's crooked smiles and crows' feet and noses in interesting shapes. that's the kind of shit artists would want to sketch, baby, that's the fun part of being alive.

and circling back to that shifting standards bit -- I promise you there's a lot more classical statues that look like you and me than a lot of what you see on the image/video-dependent apps nowadays, okay? don't forget that. we've been the models for divinity for centuries now, as hard as it is to remember when the waistband of your jeans leaves a mark behind when you take them off like a regular mortal.

plus, there's the old saying about how your features are actually proof that people have loved people who looked like you for generations now. or the myth that your face was actually the face of the person you loved the most in your last life. on the days I'm feeling exceptionally self-critical, I find that one helps: that I've been left with the stewardship of the face of the person I adored more than anything, who meant so much to me in another lifetime that I might not still remember their name, or the sound of their laugh, but they imprinted onto me still, and I owe it to them to take care of it even if I can't bring myself to do it for me.

('rae you're delusional.' I might be. but here we are at the romantic necromancer blog, so it had to come from somewhere!!)

but anyway, you're not here for all that, you're here for the necromancers, so I'll get to those. thanks for humoring me, though ;3 and I hope it helped at least a little, maybe!

If you remember from the October Arc, a lot of Maxi and his Reader falling in love are them finding someone who feels just as out-of-place in the world as they do. When he meets you, he relishes the idea that he finally has someone he can be completely open with — not having to hide his dark sense of humor for the sake of propriety, someone who won’t think he’s weird or gross for being as fascinated by death and the horrible, beautiful parts of it as he is in his position. (A lot of morticians he knows will quickly say they’re not a morbid weirdo obsessed with death, just a normal person who does a job — he is definitely the aforementioned weirdo they’d like to distance themselves from. Who wouldn’t be, with his upbringing?) When he first falls for you, it’s because he’s realizing that after a lifetime of thinking he could only ever be alone (both due to his powers and his particular grimly sunny disposition), there was finally, really, someone who understood. Someone who doesn’t shy away from him in his more vicious turns, who isn’t going to pull back at the last minute when they see beneath the suit and the calmly professional exterior he shows to the rest of the town. It’s exhilarating. He never wants to lose that, and he’d do anything to keep you — to keep you his, and to keep you whole, healthy, and happy. He’s in love first and foremost with the person he knows to be his literal soulmate, the person he trusts with his heart after so long, and your body is precious to him because it keeps you both on the mortal plane. However you choose to adorn it, ornament it, or whatever designs are written into your genetics, it’s something he’s going to adore. But even outside of that — he would love you in any form you took, any change you decided to make, because it’s you. It’s always going to be you, and you’re his. And if he’s being totally honest, he hand to god has a thing for bigger people. It’s partly due to his specialization with flesh, compared to Rora’s bone and Hex’s ectoplasm, but also because he just finds it really, really attractive when someone has some extra pounds. He’s spent a lifetime around bodies that offered no comfort - be it very little warmth or affection from his living family, the cooling bodies of the mortuary in various states of decay, or the warped, broken horrors of the things still half-alive in the basement. His own body has been a source of stress (being lanky and soft in places at the same time all his life), of pain (growing up is hard enough, growing into a body that shapes itself to the needs of a demon doesn’t help), or of bitterness on his part (we’re going to learn more about why he re-opened the scar on his chest at some point). Your body, for whatever flaws you find with it, is something he associates completely with sweetness. He finds comfort in its shape, the way it moves, the way it feels under his hands. You’re entirely alive; your body works to keep you so. It’s a creature dedicated to keeping you here with him, so how could he not be devoted to it? He’s fascinated by all the parts of yourself you’re most concerned about, because it not only makes you something one of a kind (something he thinks of as his and his alone, in his darker, more possessive moments), but he’s also terribly taken with the softer parts of you. In your more intimate moments, he relishes the contrast between the pair of you - you’re unmistakably there, you take up space and ground him with the reality of your presence. (He gets a little carried away being clingy sometimes: whether it’s his hands over every inch of skin he can touch, squeezing the flesh he so adores, biting a little too eagerly at the softest parts of you where you’ll feel the marks later and remember him. Especially your thighs. He’s a thigh man at heart, always.) You’re always his darling, and he looks forward to watching you grow into your old age with him, however you change. Change means life, and he wants to linger on this side of the Veil with you as long as both of you possibly can stay. Watching you gain wrinkles, go gray, your weight shift around — it’s a privilege, and he treats it as such. You’ll have forever on the other side, he knows that. He’s not worried about that. It’s that the two of you can only do this part once, and he wants to make sure you enjoy it as much as possible. Until both your bones are in the family crypt, or ashes are mingled in the same secret place, he’ll love you and whatever your body looks like.

Hex doesn’t love in half-measures. When he’s into you, he’s all in. As we’ll see in his arc, he can’t always put his finger on what initially draws him to someone. But usually, he saw something in the most interior parts of yourself, your very soul’s essence, first. A glimmer of it caught his eye somehow — its color, its light, some facet of you that’s sewn through the entire fabric of your being. Whatever the sign was, he would follow it until he found you… And when he found you, saw you for the first time, your looks would be a matter of interest, certainly. But he wouldn’t be searching you for any kind of lack. He has no mental version of you to compare the real you with, no expectations. Your body is you, through and through, but what you are only complements what he’s already seen. He’s only looking at you to see the things he already knows he’s going to fall in love with. He sees your body as the backdrop onto which your Self is projected. (He would love Judith Butler if he read them ever lmao.) He’s fascinated with the little ways you manifest in your physicality: your geometry of your teeth, and how they’re arranged in your smile; how light plays on the fullness of your face; the precise way your belly moves when you laugh. The way you dress, walk, what you do with your hands when you talk. The way you move through the world is pageantry to him when it’s instinct to you. It’s something to be savored, because it only happens once. Hex knows what it’s like to be shy about certain things; he’s never been very confident in words alone, because people can say anything, only their actions will speak true. But looks, to him, are part of the factual, real world he can see. (Ironically, he’s one of those guys who very much believes in what he sees in front of him — he can just see way, way more than most people can.) You can make changes, or stay exactly as you are, and he will automatically accept that as part of the truth that is You. He also knows what it’s like to not be the blueprint that everyone else wants to look like, but he feels like there’s no point in stressing about that. Does your body bring you comfort when you sleep next to him, or when you eat the food he makes for you? Do you feel happy and free when you dance together? Do you like it when he touches you (there, and there, and…)? If the answer to all of these is yes, he figures, then why worry when you don’t have to? That’s easier said than done, though, he knows. But he will remind you, in a thousand ways, how he loves you for exactly how you look now. Your shape is the shape you were always going to come into his life with, he sees no reason to think about you in another. Your hair was always going to look that way in the light, your eyes were always going to be that color. Why would he ask one of the ancient oak trees outside to change the arrangement of its branches? Why would he ask the sun to be a different color when it sets? You are just as constant as that, to him. You don’t have to be beautiful by everyone else’s standards to be a force of nature that shapes his days. Whenever you cut your hair or switch your clothes or anything else, it’s just like the golden or blue hours to him — something he counts himself lucky to witness. Of the trio, he’s the ass guy, sure, but that means he’s smitten with what’s there. You are most attractive to him when you’re happy, and he only wants to make you happier when he holds you, and shows you exactly how you make him feel, with his hands or his lips or his tongue or— even, yes, the inconstancy of words. He doesn’t want you to think about how you look when the two of you are together, he only wants you to think about how you feel, and how good he feels with you. But he will do his best, always, to make you understand how much he loves your mortal self and everything it encompasses, until the pair of you cross through the Veil and shed your corporeal forms. (He can kind of do that now, tbh, and he’s more than happy to put it to use in some… very interesting ways if you’d be down with it.)

Rora makes it no secret that she loves that you’re not just another doll in a world that demands them. She has a hard, angry relationship with the idea of beauty standards in that she wishes she could set all phone cameras on fire at the same time. She thinks the modern world is mad for what it did to itself, how people have just made it that much harder for everyone to just exist, and it was already hard enough before she accidentally opened her own throat. She is indeed lovely in a nightshade kind of way, and she will acknowledge this when you both are sharing hard feelings, but the idea of beauty and desirability caused her nothing but pain when she was young. She’s a lot like you in the sense that she only sees what she’s missing: she was never the blonde, buxom type. She was never the southern belle that her parents had hoped for, or the perfectly feminine little mini-me that Mathilde had dreamed of for decades (and made no effort to hide her disappointment when Rora didn’t turn into that girl overnight). She wasn’t pretty in the right way her father needed to see her as an effective bargaining chip. She spent her entire first life feeling like she was made all wrong for what was expected of her. She has a loose relationship at times with her own gender, both because she’s doing things again in a borrowed mortal shell, and because she feels at times more like a creature than anything else. But she loves you. She loved you from the minute she first saw you — she loved your skin with any marks that might be there, the particular set of your mouth under your nose, the parts of you that move whenever you aren’t thinking about them. From your hair follicles to your fingernail beds, you were something she found wholly lovely in just how singular you are. You are the only version of you she’s ever seen. You are a rarity. Even in the most common parts of yourself, they’re a combination she hasn’t seen on anyone else her entire life. You look real to her. You look whole, and alive, and like a person who is allowed to just be. You move through the world as yourself, one of a kind, and there’s a part of her that, even now that she’s gained her independence, desperately envies that. Rora’s love is the kind of obsessive where she almost wants to set you on a stool like an artist’s model and study you up close. She wants to make notes about the places where your skin changes color, she wants to look at how your flesh settles into itself. You got folds, or rolls? She wants to get as close to them as she can, look at them like how soft-serve ice cream swirls into itself or a nautilus shell curls around. She wants to look at every bruise or old scar or stretch mark and take in the patterns of your life that has written yourself there. She wants to look at you naked like you would count the rings of a tree to see what the weather was like each year of its life, or like a big cat lounging in the sun. You are just as wild to her, and natural, and beautiful. …And then she wants to throw aside her notebook where she’s cataloguing every piece of you and eat you alive, but just in the fun way. Rora is the boob person of the three, and she is obsessed with yours if you have them/like people touching them. It doesn’t matter what size they are, if they sag, where your nipples point, she’s going to spend an absurd amount of time with her face in them whenever you’re shirtless. She’s just as bad about getting overexcited as her twin, and might bite or suck a little too hard at times, but she’s just enchanted by you. You are the earth itself made manifest to enjoy the sunshine and the breeze in the garden, and you have given her the supreme gift of deciding you like her too. She couldn’t not be in love with you if she tried. She understands our relationships with our bodies are complicated, but she is always on your side. She’d blind the entire town with a butter knife if it meant you felt more comfortable just sitting in the cafe with her. But she understands that the prison time for that is pretty hefty, so she’ll settle for refusing to let you talk bad about yourself.

I know this took a minute, and I’m sorry again love, but I hope it gives you what you needed. <3 Just know that I’m right there with you, but I would still rather us look like you and me than anyone else. Fuck the people trying to sell us something, we’re marvels as we are.

[thebluestbluewords]

I’ve been working through some stuff. Some of that is through fic. Content Warning for food issues, implied body issues, bad parenting (not the usual flavor of bad dcom parenting, but the kind where parents care too much and don’t know the sort of pressure they’re putting on the kids)

* “My mom,” Mal says slowly, running her fingers through the thick fur at the base of the dog’s neck. “Never used food as a punishment for me. We didn’t always have enough, because it’s the isle and nobody ever had enough, but she didn’t actively punish me by withholding what we did have.”

Ben pats the dog’s head. Her name is Genny, and she’s a good dog, and she deserves the extra love today for being so accommodating of his girlfriend’s weirdness. “Yeah?” 

“My mom was one of the better adults,” Mal says, like that explains anything. It sort of does, but Ben would rather not have to fill in the gaps between what Mal’s telling him and their current issue, which is that neither of the boys are willing to come to dinner. “Evie’s mom never withhold food as a punishment, she was just sorta insane about diets in general. It was shitty when she wouldn’t let Evie eat, but it wasn’t personal, y’know?” 

Ben wishes that he didn’t know, that he didn’t intimately understand the pressures of having a parent who’s just weird about public appearances as they relate to everything in the entire world, down to the body he lives in and the ways that he’s allowed to eat. It would be easier if he didn’t know, but he’s been under the scrutiny of cameras since he was a kid. In some ways it’s been easier for him than it probably was for Evie, because he’s a boy, and because he’s always been athletic and sort of vaguely good looking, but there’s still speculation around his body every time there’s some dramatic change. It’d been awkward going through his first growth spurt, the one where he’d grown taller without getting any broader, and Audrey, who had been going through the opposite with her own growth spurts, cried for days when a particularly despicable gossip rag compared them and suggested that maybe her love of sweets was to blame for their different body types. 

“I get it,” Ben says softly, focusing on a very soft spot on Genny’s nose that needs a lot of careful attention.“Audrey suffered a lot with some of the diets her grandma wanted her to follow. It’s not personal because of something they did, but—“ 

“It’s personal because their bodies aren’t enough?” Mal’s voice is sharp, but her hands are still soft and gentle on Genny’s fur. She’s not one to worry much about her own appearance, but maybe that’s a choice she makes, rather than an inherent disinterest. Ben wouldn’t know. He’s always been uncomfortably aware of how he appears to others. His body has never been under the same level of scrutiny that girls seem to go through, but he’s had his every word and movement analyzed for any hint of unkindness or violence or insincerity, and it’s difficult to set the fear of judgement aside when it comes to his body as well as his words. 

He shrugs. There’s only so much room for freaking out right now, and it seems like Mal needs the space more than he does. “Something like that.” 

“Yeah,” Mal scoffs. “Well. Evie’s mom did a lot of the dieting stuff with her, which was stupid really, because nobody had enough food to go around back on the rock. It was basically suicidal not to eat when you had the chance. She almost died once cause her mom wouldn’t keep any bread or carbs in the house.” 

Evie loves the soft rolls they have at dinner sometimes. She won’t ever admit it out loud but they’ve all seen the way she lingers over the occasional doughnuts they get at breakfast on the weekends. It’s odd to think of Evie as lacking anything, but a healthy relationship with food is a pretty easy thing to lose, apparently. 

“Evie’s not—“ Ben stutters, unsure of the right thing to say. He’s allowed to stutter over his words with Mal. She’s never once laughed at him for it, or used his pauses to push him into a rushed decision that he’s not ready to make. “Her mother was wrong. She doesn’t need to diet.”

It’s not quite what he meant to say, but hopefully the intent comes through anyway. 

Mal sighs. Oops. Maybe those weren’t quite the right words after all. “No. She doesn’t. And I don’t know what kind of fool thoughts went through her mother’s head that made her think that, I just know that she sometimes starved. It’s not personal, so I guess that’s the impact of only valuing girls for their looks, or something.  She never meant it to hurt Evie, so it’s e—“ Mal catches herself on the start of an EEEE sound, chokes on the word, and coughs instead. “It’s different.” 

Ben’s pretty sure he knows what she was going to say. “Not easier?” 

Mal’s cheeks flush bright pink, and she ducks her head away info her own shoulder. “Sometimes. Maybe. But it mostly just sucks in a different way.” 

“Yeah,” Ben agrees softly, reaching up to pat right next to where Mal’s hand is still buried in the dog’s ruff. “It does.” 

“Mom never did that to me.” Mal says abruptly. 

Oh.

Oh shit. 

Mal doesn’t talk about Maleficent. She doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she has  a mother most of the time, and given the choice, Ben is positive that she’d rather go about her entire life as though she’s been spontaneously created by the universe to fill a void where the idea of a fairy should go. In the months that they’ve been dating, Mal has brought up her mother few enough times that Ben could count them on his fingers, so it’s not exactly an insignificant thing that she’s mentioning her here. 

“It’s—“ Mal stutters, her small hand going tight and stiff next to Ben’s. Her voice is smaller than usual. “I didn’t have problems. I ate whatever I could get. I’m the normal one here. Normal-er, I guess.” 

“Yeah, you’re doing a really great job at being normal,” Ben agrees amicably, even though his heart is beating double-quick and he’s pretty sure he’s blushing. “Crushing it even. The whole thing where we’re hiding outside with the dogs is really cementing it for me, you’re super normal and the others are the only ones I’m worried about.” 

Mal hits him. Not hard, but she’s got a solid punch even when it’s just a tap. “Shut up,” she snaps, voice tighter than it should be. “I’m the most normal about food, and you know it.” 

“Yeah, the others are really weird.” 

“They are.” Mal says firmly, eyes flashing.  “And I know why they won’t come down and make nice with your family. Jay’s dad used food as a punishment, so he’s got some sort of weird self-worth complex about eating when he hasn’t earned it, and Carlos was always forced to be a servant in his mother’s house, so sitting in the formal dining room with the adults freaks him out. Jay’s thing is probably weirder, and I don’t know how to get him to stop and it’s actually really scary but I’ve been pretending it’s fine for so long that I don’t know how to stop at this point. And like, he doesn’t want me telling you about it,” she finishes, cheeks flushing bright purple-red. “So please don’t tell them how you know.” 

[luminarai]

do you ever get that thing where you’re walking through a clothing store and you suddenly catch a whiff of that weird plastic-y smell from their swimwear section and you’re immediately hit with this deep sense of panic and nausea or are you normal

[thelasttime]

(weight/body issues tw) madie, i’m going home for thanksgiving and just wanted to get some advice if you have any! i have a lot of body image issues due to my dysphoria and having been inactive for a while due to an injury. my mother frequently talks about how her weight increases, she can’t fit into her clothes, etc while being much fitter than me. my dad claims (frequently) that he couldn’t care less about his own weight, but talks about how he maintains his weight and fitness constantly. like every day. and he always brings it up like it’s a new revelation. neither knows that i have some issues about it and my own body, and i’d like to keep it that way. my mother toned it down a little when i suggested it casually, but i know it’s gonna be in full force for both of them regardless - especially bc thanksgiving is so centered around food. is there any approach that you can think of that might get through to them without just telling them that their talk affects me a good deal?

hi anon!! i'm so sorry for the late reply to this ask and i hope i'm not too late in answering this. i think this is so valid and you have every right to be concerned about this situation especially because you deserve to be respected and talked to the way you wanted to be talked to!! i think that wanting to talk to your family about this issue is very important and i'm happy that you're taking the initiative to think about this issue before it occurs (and i hope i'm really not too late on answering this) but i think that i would approach this situation by sitting down with your parents and talking to them about how you feel. my hope is that if you approach them with sincerity and honesty that they'll respect your feelings and your boundaries. i hope that you're able to approach them about this topic and i hope this helps!!

[pinkbcrett]

❛ you okay? caught you staring off into space again. ❜

&. 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬. / accepting.

𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐊. She had really screwed up this time. She had lost track of time. She didn't feel hungry, but her body was telling her otherwise. She hears Craig's voice and she leans against the wall (for support) but attempts to make it seem more natural. She felt too tired to pretend today. She wished the feeling had started at the beginning of school, not half way through. Her voice was perky, her face was not. She could only manage to fake one. ❛ I'm fine, not staring into space, we should really get these ceilings changed, i'll bring it up at next student council. have you seen tweek today?  We need to go over some homework. ❜

[starfoam]

What’s strange is that the inciting moment - the thing that would make her turn - would probably have nothing to do with what Bellamy actually is.

It wouldn’t be because of envy. She’s used to stepping back and letting those around her enjoy the things she wants, even if she worked hard for them - after all, she’s not entitled to the relationships and accomplishments of others. Even if somebody she thought she might love chose one of her friends over her, she would be able to endure it - that’s not enough darkness.

It wouldn’t be insecurity. Lo’s relationship with her body is... a complicated beast, in that she thinks it is a beautiful thing, but what has been done to it (battle, magic, constant scarring and healing) has made it alien. But even that can be negotiated down to an afterthought, compartmentalized, put away. She can hold off on succumbing to despair over that.

It wouldn’t even be grief. Her grief is sort of insubstantial and hard to place - it’s for those she failed to save, for who she might have been, who she fears she can’t be - but it’s been with her for so long that it’s part of her. Even bad days only last for one to two days, and those are far enough that she can recover, right? it’ll be fine.

No, the thing that would get her... is exhaustion. Just the constant work that goes into being this kind, caring person, that goes into trying to put out good even when she doesn’t get it and managing all of the above, would get to be too much. One day she would wake up and just be drained, and find that she just doesn’t have the resources or time or ability to recover. Bellamy would appear at her fingertips, her inability to recover fast enough allowing the dark to creep up her arms and sink down her chest, swirling around her heart - and as she takes her last breath, she only manages a single phrase:

“I’m tired.”

And then the walls crash down, and Bellamy comes spilling out like a tsunami.

[mooshkat]

the body do be dysmorphing today

[youngsamanda]

the way my fat ass wants 2 cosplay nina zenik or jester lavore bc i know i could easily do them without feeling awkward abt trying to portray myself as a skinny character ... like tried to build a cosplay of daphne from scooby doo and it just made me so sad bc all of the outfits i could find didn’t go bigger than a large and i’m only a size 16 like ... cannot imagine what other girlies go through bc i can literally NEVER find my size in cute stuff let alone stuff like tht

[noonegetsleftbehind]

//Just kinda really need to get some thoughts out under the cut

I have made no secret here of the fact that I struggle quite a lot with mental illness. I prefer to be open and honest about that instead of hiding my illness away in shame. Do I still feel like shit about it? Yeah. Think that comes with the territory.

Anyways... I fluctuate and some days are better than others etc. I’ve been struggling really bad lately. A lot of CPTSD things have been triggered and I’m just... I’ve been having a super hard time feeling anything more than pretty much utterly worthless and that translates into both my normal IRL things and here. I’ve been worrying a lot about my portrayal subsequently etc. Just sort of feeling like I kinda fail at being a person so why the hell would I be any good at writing a whole ass other person?

I’ve also struggled with gender dysphoria for years. Despite choosing to identify as non-binary, I still just look at myself as a... What the fuck. There’s always the constant feeling of not knowing what or who I am which tanks my self-esteem even more because I barely even feel like a person half the time. My self-image has tanked so hard recently that if I so much as catch myself in the mirror I want to hurl. I don’t like who I see at all. 

I swear I am not looking to bitch or seek sympathy. I just... Needed to get my feelings out somewhere and this is typically where I go to write and express myself so. I try not to bother my friends because, let’s be real, so many of us are running on so few spoons and I honestly just want to see my friends happy. It’s more of a suffer in silence kind of thing most of the time for me. Just having a bit more trouble than usual. 

The only good thing is the increase in one of my meds has left me with more/enough energy/motivation most days to be on here and writing and interacting. You have no idea how happy I am about that at least. My creativity and writing is my one and only outlet and not having that for so long just killed me. The fact I have this drive back, my wife and my fur babies... It’s honestly about the only thing that keeps me going every day. 

So, yeah... Sorry for the rant/negativity I guess. 

I love you all, okay? You’re all amazing creative writers and I am so honored and thrilled to get to write with you all and interact with you all. For those that I call friends as well, you mean the absolute fucking world to me and I hope you know what your friendship means to me, especially when I am at my lowest. <3

[mouseleygraham]

honestly it never occurred to me that a huge reason why I’m insecure of my body isn’t because I’m afraid of not being hot it’s because my body as is gives me a lot of dysphoria. don’t know why I didn’t connect those two together LMFAO

[scarletv0id]

Herbert West is never seen without a tie. Why is that? Dan Cain certainly can’t explain it and with the heat rising steadily as summer goes it’s become more and more of a problem.

[purple-dahlias]

lamenting the fact that i’ll never look like one of those skinny girls in a puffer jacket