#unsolicited: fatties talk back

[softandorsweet]

just ~ if you haven’t listened to the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back GO DO IT!!! it’s a group of Fat liberationist discussing everything fatness and anti-fatness. plus they all exist with multiple marginalizations, most hosts are queer and trans. it’s so brilliant i’ll never get over it!!!! god

[spidergirl2000]

Hey y’all. So there are plenty of folks who want to get into fat liberation but don’t know where to start. I would recommend starting off with these two books: “Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness” by Da’Shaun L. Harrison (they are nonbinary and they use they/them pronouns) and “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” by Sabrina Strings. I also recommend listening to the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back. The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Audible and any other app you use to listen to podcasts. They also have a website so you can listen to all of the episodes they post. Just type Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back and you’ll find their website. They post a new episode roughly every two Sundays.

[prettyputrified]

Hey have you heard of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back? It’s a podcast made by fat liberationists. It’s really good😊

I haven't I've been meaning to get into more podcasts! for some reason i struggle with them but i've been starting with [REDACTED] History and More Than Tracy Turnblad so I'll have to add that to my list, thank you so much. any episodes you'd recommend? or just go in order?

[thefatfemme]

does anyone know if the Unsolicited Fatties Talk Back podcast is coming back, or did it end? It's been months since they posted but I can't find anything saying if they're just on break or if they're not coming back. I caught up on the episodes and it's the best fat lib podcast I've found so far!

[wreckitremy]

"as someone who has had been friends who has had fat friends who have wanted to be thin, who has, you know, like engaged people in general, like, and of course, all of us have engaged, random people on, on the internet for different reasons who are just antagonistic towards fat folks.

We, we know, I know, like how these conversations you usually do go, right? Where it it's always "the fat person is to blame." And fat people's feelings don't matter around these issues and, and you know, like you're being extra, you're, you're being dramatic, or this is like an unnecessary response to, to like my personal journey.

But I don't think that people actually start to think about how their personal journeys do play a significant role in the general systemic upkeep of antifatness.

Which is not to say that you, you can't do what you want with your body, but it is to say that what we do with our bodies do not have consequences for other people around us um, and people who are not around us, right."

-Da'shaun, Unsolicited Fatties Talk Back

[fatcultureis]

fat culture is trying to find a fat positive podcast but 90% of the results are about losing weight or far-right commentators whining about how “dangerous” the fat liberation movement is

fat culture is

here are some fat lib/positive/friendly podcast recommendations (hosted by fat people)

unsolicited: fatties talk back

fierce fatty

big sexy chat

fat and fucked (you might have to look for "fat and f****d")

swipe fat

more than tracy turnblad

[crippleprophet]

how do you manage the isolation that comes with being housebound? I keep finding myself slipping into unhealthy behaviors to manage because most people's advice is like. "get outside even a little bit!" and I am stuck in bed most days...

this is a good question by which i mean i don’t. um but an assortment of things that help:

i’m very fortunate to have a roomie who is home most of the time as well so i’d be remiss not to acknowledge how big of a difference that makes & ik not everyone is in that position

talking to people online - tumblr, discord, i keep in touch with a couple folks via monthly emails

zoom calls 1-2 times a week when i’m feeling up for it

listening to people talk with each other even when i don’t have the spoons to participate in conversations myself - for me this is usually podcasts (listening to unsolicited: fatties talk back lately) but ik other homebound folks swear by video game livestreams

setting your boundaries & sticking by them!!! for me this means filtering every possible iteration of “leave the house” “log off” “touch grass” etc etc, & i’m trying to get better about being like yeah please don’t tell me about your covid-unsafe events when i’m messaging people. it’s okay to unfollow people for making you feel like shit about being housebound and/or bedbound.

looking out the window with the cats

nature documentaries

i’m a big fan of maxims so i’ve been telling myself on repeat “life is in your house too,” “your bed is also part of the world” etc. made some posters saying that when i was having a better hand day

just generally hearing stories about Other People That Exist. my gf tells me about her shitty coworkers & the latest Quaker meeting drama, my butch tells me about academics being horribly unethical, my roommate tells me about faer family’s latest bullshit

OH i forgot to mention, it is in your best interest to become disproportionately invested in a silly little mobile game. i have a lot of hand problems but castle story is accessible for me so i’m very obsessed with that, the new events ~weekly give me something to measure the passage of time by + look forward to

i hope some of that is helpful! feel free to dm me - i’d love to have more homebound friends & i’m also happy to add you to my bitter cripple discord if you’re 18 or older. much love to you & i hope it gets a bit easier 💓💓

[alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody]

it is … so disappointing to see br*ndan fr*ser, an actor I had nothing but positive feelings about before now, have his “comeback” at the expense of fat people. I don’t know what intentions he approached this project with but OH MAN does the whole thing come off as a display of total disdain for and dehumanization of the people with whom the movie professes to empathize. it’s honestly so disappointing to see this movie rewarded at all, especially at this level. it’s 2023. isn’t it embarrassing to pin your entire movie on a cgi-assisted fat suit? isn’t it embarrassing to make a movie that admits so blatantly that no one involved realizes how much fatphobia is baked into it or cares to even imagine fat people as human beings?!

lots of fat writers, activists, content creators have discussed and critiqued this movie and its flaws far more eloquently and I highly recommend reading, watching, and listening to their work: daniel franzese, bryan guffey, lindy west, roxane gay, kivan bay, kate manne, katie rife, the fat culture critic, lindley ashline, and michelle allison, to name a handful. unsolicited: fatties talk back did a whole episode on it, as did more than tracy turnblad. caleb luna also compiled a list of media that portrays fat characters and actors in better, more interesting ways. also a good thread on being fat and having an eating disorder by blakeley payne.

anyway. I’m mad and disappointed that stuff like this is still being made and rewarded and that fatness is still held up as the pinnacle of tragedy and I’m sending very much love to the fat people in and out of this community. you deserve so much better.

[fatliberation]

love your page so much! have you read any work from Da’shaun L Harrison? they are so so amazing and have written an amazing book called the “belly of the beast: the politics of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness” they also co host the fat liberation podcast called “unsolicited: fatties talk back” with other fat liberationists whom i love like Caleb Luna, Bryan Guffey, Marquisele Mercedes and Jordan Hall! most of them are also trans! thought i’d share <3

Yes!!! I adore Da’shaun’s work as well as everyone else you just mentioned! I follow each of them individually and when I found out they were hosting a podcast together I geeked out SO HARD. I’m currently making my way through Unsolicited FTB and it is feeding my soul. What an incredible group of people. I highly recommend listening!

[your-subby-creature]

Hi there, do you have any podcast recs? :3

Oo yes, you have stumbled upon something that I humanly cannot shut up about! I love a lot of podcasts, I tend to separate them out by fiction, nonfiction, and sleepy

Fiction: Camp Here 'n' There, Welcome to Nightvale, The Magnus Archives, Mnemosyne, the Silt Verses

Nonfiction: Knowledge Fight, Trillbilly Workers Party, The Dollop, New Books Network, Maintenance Phase, Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back, Death Panel, Just King Things, Off The Cuffs, All My Relations, Congressional Dish,

Podcasts to sleep to: Boring Books for Bedtime, The Empty Bowl, Dormirse,

Thank you for your ask!! Have a lovely day, anon <3

-your Creature

[campgender]

been listening to unsolicited: fatties talk back & caleb luna just said “i do not identify as a festive person” & i’m like meeee

[fatcultureis]

fat culture is being radicalised by unsolicited: fatties talk back.

[thaenad]

In this episode, the fatties discusses the play and upcoming movie "The Whale," Brendan Fraser, and the way media rarely engages honestly with fat people of any size, but especially the fattest among us.

[softcuddlekitty]

So, let's talk for a minute.

I'm sorry I haven't been replying to DMs and Asks very much recently. I just haven't had it in me to do more than I had to. Last week was not good for me. I'm just feeling very overwhelmed and it stops me from doing what I need to do, so tumblr is on a back burner for now. I will get back to replying to messages daily again eventually, but it won't be right now.

I also just wanted to say that now that I've been doing this for about a month, I've learned what I like and don't like.

I like being complimented. I like positive words associated with my weight gain. I like dirty talk when it doesn't go too far. I like a little teasing.

I don't like being called fatty or piggy or pig very much; it doesn't make me feel sexy. I don't like being demeaned. I don't like getting unsolicited pics; it just makes me uncomfortable.

I do this for myself, not anyone else. I thank everyone who has given me support because you boost me up and give me to encouragement to keep doing this. Please just be patient with me and if you're ever not sure if I'll like something, just ask.

With love,

Kitty

[pickyperkypenguin]

some reflections on dying hair with henna (lawsonia inermis)

i’ve had dyed my hair red with henna/lawsonia inermis (sometimes with added amla/emblica officinalis, and jatropha) for four years, since i was about sixteen year old ‘til i was about twenty. somewhere at the two or three year mark i roped up my mother into dying her hair with henna too. so, i’ve been dying my own and then my mother’s hair with herbs for the last ten years every month or two. i feel like i might have the right to talk about it just because i’ve done it so many times and got consistent results

it took me long enough to figure out my perfect recipe, but the amount of misinformation i see on the internet in regards to henna dying process is staggering. i thought, okay, maybe ten years ago it was relatively knew in the polish corner of the world wide web, but now? sure it should be more popular? and okay, i did manage to find some info faster than those years ago (boy, let me tell you it was some google-fu required to get into that information back then, and all was, like, crowd-sourced from experimentally-inclined hair bloggers - a sub-type of beauty bloggers - and wise, old and jaded women who knew henna as chna, because they’ve used it back in the socialist times, when it was still imported from the east, hence the different spelling). but still, it was not much, however, there were some more professional sources involved than cosmetics forums. i’ll check the anglophone side, i thought. sure it should be much better, yeah? no misinfo?

goddamn, was i wrong. like, on one hand it was much better, because you have those amazing sources from especially indian women, for whom it is very much a traditional thing so the technique was perfected for, like, millenia. they know what they’re doing. but - and here comes my surprise - there was much of the same simply wrong bullshit from other sources? and i was like, what the hell, why do you even do that, why do you spread information that is clearly wrong - and you’ve had the chance to cross-reference it with very good sources without learning a whole other language in the process? so, like, why? why do people do that? i do not understand.

*if you are curious and want some unsolicited advice from a person who is not an expert, then, here, have my completely unprofessional opinion that’s based solely on years of experience and observation of dying first never previously dyed hair, and then naturally grey hair, which was (is) also getting regularly permed, because my mother has never left the eighties:

the perfect recipe is this:

add sugar and lemon juice when using pure henna or when you combine it with amla and/or jatropha

don’t use acids when you add indigo/indigofera tinctoria, because it needs alkaline environment. you can add either some black tea or a bit of salt

but do not add that salt, to be honest, because it’s not good for your hair, it dries it out

i’m not sure if adding sugar would be bad when dying with indigo (idk about its acidity level - is this a thing in this case?), but sugar is generally a humectant, and really helps the dye to have a lot smoother consistency. 

also, sugar might moisturise your hair, but i’m not entirely sure about that - even if one moisturises hair with something, the hair cuticles (is that the word in english?) should be then closed/smoothed down with something else, oil or silicone, to keep the moisture in? otherwise you’re just preparing your hair to be frizzy as hell, because porosity and different level of humidity in the air is a thing

the consistency of the dye should be adjusted to your own preferences and the thickness of the hair, don’t feel like you have to get that arbitrary greek yogurt thickness. that literally doesn’t matter, it’ll work anyway as long as you cover it and keep it moist. don’t let the dye dry, you might get uneven patches of colour. keep it covered with plastic wrap and put a towel on, herbal dyes like warmth to develop properly

speaking of warmth - about 80 C for henna, no more than 40-50 for indigo, maybe even less, around 30 C. never want the dye to be boiled

what also matters is not adding oil to the mixture. it will hinder the dying process. so, no fatty yogurt, no coconut oil. you can do it after, at least a day or two (for indigo at least two, maybe even three) days after

honey will not 'clog’ anything, i have no idea where did it come from. it’s not a fat, it shouldn’t do anything except for the same thing that sugar does

idk, you may add honey instead of sugar if you’re feeling extra, but no, it will not make the shade any different (i’ve seen stuff like adding honey will give you that honey-blond lustre. it will not. cassia might, for grey and very fair blonde hair. but won’t change much when you’re using something much stronger, like henna). and if you think it will give you some health benefits? i mean, i do think honey is healthy for you, but i very much prefer to eat it, simply as that

i have no idea how does that work, if it builds into your hair, if there is some magic with herbal proteins and hair proteins, but herbal dyes, henna especially, thickens your hair. which is marvellous. i believe that ridiculous statement only because i happened to be gross that one time and lost a hairbrush before i managed to clean it, and it was just after my first two or three henna dyes. i found that brush four years later, after consistent dying every single month, and i compared my hair from the brush with the ones in my head - and the ones on my head, despite comparing the very ends - you know, easily reachable when you have hair reaching your butt - and the ends of hair that long are thinner and split in my case - were still thicker (almost twice as thick!) as those from the brush. it was fucking wild

it builds up and darkens overtime, so your ends might be darker than your roots, if you dye the whole thing, as i did

i never dyed with indigo, but relaying on second-hand experience - if you have hair on the lighter side, do the two-step process and pre-dye with henna first. if you don’t, the blue of the indigo and the yellow that your hair contains combine, and you might end up with something green-ish on your head 

although, you know, that’s basic colour theory, i don’t know what people expect when they do that and then act surprised - herbal dyes only cover what is already there, they don’t bleach or strip your natural colour before. that’s why henna ends up very bright on bleached or grey hair and yes, you should very much do the two-step thing, if you want your grey hair black not green

also, never understood what’s so wrong with green hair. go and be that nymph, live your true forest god life, eff society

a quick guide for colours:

henna - pure red

henna+jatropha - fox-red, as in warm, yellow-ish, brassy, beautiful for skin with warm and olive undertones

henna+amla - red but cooler, not exactly a cherry, but much different shade than pure henna or h+j, awesome for cooler and neutral skin tones

henna+amla+jatropha - idk what you’re trynna do, mate, but it’ll be somewhere in the red region, depends on proportions

henna+indigo - depending on proportions, anywhere from cooler brown to dark red-ish brown

indigo - black with blue-ish tinge, on lighter hair should be used on pre-dyed with henna hair

cassia - might give you warm, blonde-ish shade on grey or very fair hair, might do absolutely nothing, you can add it to henna mixes to ensure the warm tone

[annearachne]

Totally unsolicited thoughts, but I saw one of those posts about basic cooking skills on my dash earlier and wanted to talk about stuff

Learn to braise meat!! Especially now that it’s fall in the Northern Hemisphere you can snuggle up in a house that smells like slow-cooking.

Different salts do different jobs, and I like to season my meat with a mix of kosher salt and spices before I cook with it. The flakey salt will pull moisture off the surface and give it a nice crust. (PS if you do a salt rub first, be careful about seasoning later. Pre-made stock or bouillon can have a good amount of sodium, so taste often and dilute if needed)

Sear that fucker!! Put it in a hot pan and brown all the sides. It will start looking awesome, especially if you chose a fatty cut. Fat=flavor, and browning it makes it even better.

I like to slow cook on the stove because I like to keep all the juices and meaty bits in one place, but you can sear in a pan and transfer to a crock pot if you prefer. After a good long while the meat will get tender and depending on the cut will start falling off the bone. If I’m making a stew I pull the meat out and break it apart with two forks, and then plop it back in the pot for the last hour or so.

Bonus skill: learn how to deglaze a pan. Especially after you sear meat you’ll have crispy meaty bits which have a ton of flavor, so don’t waste it. Deglazing is basically pouring liquid into the pan and loosening those bits at the bottom. You can use wine or stock, and it’s a great beginning of a demi glace or gravy. Salvaged flavor bits and less scraping it off the bottom of the pan later.

Basically show your cooking some love and enjoy some braising. Also try to see how many “rub your meat” jokes you can come up with.