Fight Fat Erasure with Sea-Witchery

A blog dedicated to challenging fat erasure, fatphobia and fatmisogyny in both the media at large and in fandom, for fighting to preserve fat representation, and for celebrating fat characters and awesome fanart that preserves their fatness. This blog has a special focus on Ursula from The Little Mermaid because of her treatment by both the Disney franchise and its fandom, and it also has a special focus on Steven Universe and the plethora of fat characters in the show because of their treatment by their own fandom. This blog is also meant to address how fatphobia and fat erasure impacts other fat characters, but the primary battlegrounds for those topics right now lie with Ursula and with Rose Quartz, Amethyst, Steven, Sadie, and Greg. fanart. fandom. fat activism. criticism. reblogs. rants.

[keepursulafat]

quick PSA

because of my hiatus, anyone sending me communications that are angry, provoking, hateful or trolling will be blocked. I won’t even read your messages all the way through either - if a cursory glance tells me it’s an angry rant, I’m blocking you. I don’t have the energy or spoons to spare to run this blog rn, but if I did I’d be putting it towards better, more rewarding aspects of running it than arguing with people who are already angry and won’t listen to anything I say anyways.

So if you are angry about this blog or fat people in general, please message me at this time. (so that I can delete your correspondence without reading or responding to it and permanently block you)

[keepursulafat]

Yeah! Actually, my sister is very good at drawing characters as they are, I just needed help with explaining an idea to someone and I didn't know how to organize my thoughts. I'm proud to say that I influenced my sister very well, I don't think she correlates body type to beauty :) thank you again!

I’m really glad to hear it, and I’m happy tor help! It was helpful for me too, brainstorming those ideas up. It sounds like you’ve been a really good influence to your sister, I hope she keeps drawing! :)

[keepursulafat]

Nah, it was an actual question, I'm sorry it sounded like something else. Thank you so much!

Thanks for clarifying! I’m glad it was a real question, since it’s such a good one :) . Sorry if my wariness of trolls meant I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I’ve had to deal with my share of hostile messages on this blog so I have to be wary of trolls. And I do know that there are some people out there (even if you’re not one of them) who will become incredibly enraged at people who point out to artists if their work is fat erasive and ask them to not participate in the erasure anymore, because That Artist Is (Or Could Be) Just A Kid And Oh That Poor Sweet Innocent Child Is Being Viciously Bullied By The SJW’s For No Good Reason. They Don’t And Can’t Know Any Better Than To Draw What They Do Now And Must Be Protected From The PC Police Who Want To Change Their Art, The Poor Fragile Souls.

[keepursulafat]

What should I do if my little sister draws rose skinny? She's 5.

I can't really tell whether this ask was meant to be an accusatory or an honest question, but I'm going to treat it as an honest question because it's actually a really good one, and an excellent topic to address. Thank you for bringing this up!

“How does one discourage kids from participating in fat erasure in a compassionate, educational and positive way?”

After thinking about it myself, here are some ideas I came up with:

By casually introducing the child to more positive fat media representation (and you don't have to introduce it to them pointedly like "hey lookit this great thing with a fat person in it!", just letting them see more fat characters being visible and awesome can help in the long run).

By leading by positive example. For instance, you can draw a few fat characters or fat people in your life with your sister, and on your part do it as accurately as you can. Show her your drawings and talk about how much you like those fat characters or people, and have her show you her drawings and respond positively to them. Even if they're all thin, you can be encouraging about her work without touching on the erasure. The important thing here isn’t telling her drawing thin bodies in some contexts is bad, it’s telling her that drawing fat bodies in any context/in general is good. You can just show by your own actions that drawing fat people is an option, and is something positive and fun to do!

Pointing out positive fat people in the child's life and talking about how great those people are, and bringing up their fatness as neutral or positive part of them/their appearance. Perhaps invite the child to draw them, and if they draw them thin, gently and playfully try to correct them. For example: "Is that really them? Don't they have a bigger belly than that? Look how I drew them. Their big belly doesn't make them look bad, it's just a part of how they look. And we love them a lot no matter how they look!" (Also, finding positive fat representation among real poeple in the child's life might well be easier to achieve than finding positive fat representation in the media to show them, and it could also be more effective at communicating the message "fat people exist, and are awesome and loveable, and the way they look is just fine.")

If the child is fat, encourage them to draw a self portrait. If they draw themselves fat, then be really positive and encouraging about their drawing. If they draw themselves thin, you could use it as an opportunity to ask them why they drew themselves that way when they aren’t, thereby learning what fatphobic messages they may have started to internalize about themselves, and you can then teach them why those messages are untrue and bolster the child's self-esteem and acceptance of their own body.

Generally help to teach the child general fat acceptance, and negate any fatphobic messages they may be learning from other sources. If the child has a positive view of fatness in general, and they don't have any strongly internalized fatphobic beliefs, they're less likely to see fat as something they need to avoid acknowledging, drawing, or being themselves.

If other people have further suggestions on positive and compassionate ways to encourage kids to draw fat bodies, feel free to add them to the post!

[keepursulafat]

hi um could you help me? i know that skinny-fying canonically fat characters is wrong but some ppl are defending it by saying it's the same as making a canonically skinny character fat. i know that this isn't the case and theyre not the same thing but idk how to explain it

Oh yeah you see people arguing that a lot. It's an argument that indicates how they're either completely ignorant of or willfully turning a blind eye to the current state of fat representation in both the media at large & in fandoms.

The essential points are as follows:

there is infinitely less, worse and more negative representation of fat bodies than there is of thin bodies right now

good representation is incredibly important to people who don't otherwise have much of it, usually marginalized groups. for a lot of reasons.

So because good fat representation is so rare, it's especially important to us that what little we have respected and preserved by fans and creators alike. When you can only maybe list 10 examples of positive fat characters off the top of your head, taking away even one of them is a big deal.

Meanwhile, thin characters that are portrayed as positive? Literally everywhere. Literally in everything, filling 99-100% of all casts. In everything. If I could write all the positive fat characters I can think of 2 squares of toilet paper, it would take me 10 entire rolls of toilet paper at least to list all the positive thin characters I can think of.

So when people draw thin characters as fat, they are taking away one tiny drop in a vast ocean of thin characters. And when people draw fat characters as thin, they're taking a big gulp out of the one water bottle you have, as a dehydrated person in the desert. If it sounds imbalanced to compare those two things, considering this, then you’re correct.

Also, in general, fat characters are drawn as thin A LOT more than thin characters are drawn as fat, in fandoms. For every chubby Lapis drawing there's probably 200 thin Rose Quartz drawings. I wish that was an exaggeration - if anything, I'm probably underestimating the number of thin Roses.

Also, there's the difference in fat vs thin representation even in fanart. Thin fanart is overwhelming positive, and portraying the new thin body the character has as normal, beautiful, pretty, sexy and good.

Meanwhile, a lot of fat fanart of thin characters in fandom is less than positive representation. A lot of it is either fatphobic (e.g. showing the newly fat character as being ugly and gross) or fat fetishistic (which is often unrealistic, sexualized, and not meant to show realistic fat bodies or be for real fat people). Very little fat fanart of thin characters is realistic, positive and just meant to make fat fans happy.

So basically, fat representation both in fandom and the media at large is still in a pretty scant & shitty place, and thin bodies are represented infinitely more & more positively to boot. And when I say “infinitely more,” that isn’t hyperbole. That’s pretty realistic.

Overall, anyone who equates drawing fat characters as thin with drawing thin characters as fat should probably be ignored, bc they just don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They literally haven't done even an iota of research or given a single fuck about the subject, or they'd realize what they're saying is laughable to anyone who's actually looked even a little bit at how both of those phenomena manifest in fandom spaces. and who care about fat representation in the slightest.

[keepursulafat]

for the longest time i would never draw boys or people with short hair in my art cause i had no fricken clue how to do the hairline. One day i just kinda was like "fuck it" and started drawing them. I got better, and i think thats kinda like the people who use "oh but idk how to draw fat ppl" JUST FRICKEN TRY IF YOU CANT PRACTICE NO ONE EXPECTS YOU TO BE PERFECT AT SOMTHING ON THE FIRST TRY. that is all.

Exactly!! I mean there’s definitely a problem with how few (much less good) resources there are out there teaching how to draw fat bodies (or even just fat on bodies that isn’t on the butt, boobs or thighs) comprehensively, but that’s no excuse.

For example, it’s entirely possible, and not even that hard, to google up reference images of real fat people and draw from that (pun intended). And if your initial drawings of fat bodies turn out badly, whether you’re using reference or no, you don’t have to share them! You can practice drawing fat people on old scrap paper and never show your work to anyone until you get confident in it. Nobody has to know that you struggled, but just giving up on even trying because it would be a struggle isn’t an excuse.

“It’d be a lot of work to learn it” is an excuse that’s acceptable when you don’t want to try using a new artistic medium or style, like sure okay you wanna devote your time to drawing rather than suddenly learning how to make pottery. But “only drawing thin people” is not a medium or style of drawing, it’s a denial of the reality of how many people look, and ignoring fat as a body type (and body feature) that millions of people have. Essentially: If you want to draw people, drawing fat people is a part of that, no matter how much our culture & art education system love to ignore it.

[keepursulafat]

hey if its not too much to ask could you please give me a good source/explanation on how drawing fat characters thin is fatphobic? cause someone just sent me an ask saying 'it doesnt erase what already exists' and im not quite sure how to respond and organize my thoughts

Well there’s a lot of reasons why it’s fatphobic. Just specifically responding to the shitty ask you got, and the idea of “it doesn’t erase what already exists”, the short answer is:

“well not for lack of fucking trying it doesn’t, not when this kind of erasure happens so much and so constantly within a fandom. And when a fandom is saturated with fat erasure, it might as well eliminate all positive fat representation from canon what with how it creates such a negative and toxic environment for fat fans.”

And the long answer is:

“Well not for lack of trying it it doesn’t. (And make no mistake, the people participating in this process would absolutely erase the fatness of character in canon if they could, because there is no reason to engage in or support fat erasure that is not inherently fatphobic). Also plenty of fans actually do try to erase the canonical fatness of characters via arguing that a fat character isn’t actually fat or isn’t ‘that fat’ or is “just a little chubby” in canon. Let me repeat that: plenty of people within fandoms do actively try to erase “what [fat representation] already exists” by arguing against its existence in canon.

And even if that didn’t happen: if a show has positive fat representation and is meant to be inclusive of fat bodies and fat fans, but the fandom is rife with people collectively and constantly ignoring/erasing that positive fat representation, defending that erasure, and snubbing fat fans? That leeches so much of the positivity out of the show and fandom for fat people that those participating in the fat erasure might as well have succeeded in erasing the fat representation from canon. It’s sickening to watch every small advancement in one’s representation be met with an enormous opposing backlash of erasure to counteract it. It alienates the fat fans that original representation is meant for, and it makes the fandom community a hostile space for us rather than a safe and accepting one. And when a fandom openly and visibly tolerates and even encourages fat erasive activities on a long-term basis, that also discourages fat fans from participating or staying in the fandom on a long-term basis, even if they enjoy the fat representation in the canonical source material a lot and for a long time. We shouldn’t have to silently put up with that kind of thing happening to our characters in order to stay in those fandom communities.

And even if canonical fat representation can’t technically be changed (and ignoring how fans can try to change it via denial), it can be drowned out by sheer ever-growing volumes of erasive fanworks. Basically: if fans try hard enough, and create enough negative stuff to counteract the positive of canon, it makes a difference. It can get to the point where if someone was introduced to certain (fat erasure-filled) parts of a fandom, without having ever looked at the canon material first, they might believe there were no fat characters in the original story. If someone who isn’t in a fandom only ever sees thin art of characters from it, how are they to know those characters aren’t actually all thin in canon? They don’t. The presence of fat representation in canon, in a case like that, might as well not actually exist.

Similarly, even if someone knows a character is fat in canon, if all they see within the fandom, is thin images of them, they might forget that character was fat or decide they’re actually better thin, solely because that’s all they see of the character, and the idea of them being thin has become both normalized and idealized within the community. And creating an environment where a fat character’s drawn thin so much in the fandom they might as well be thin in canon too? That can be, in some ways, worse for fat fans than having not been represented in the first place.“

Beyond this, there’s plenty more to be said to explain the harm that fat erasure causes in fandom, and if you want anything beyond this then you can explore the tags on this blog for “fat erasure in fandom” or “no fat erasure”.

[miniature-stigmata]

look at all this fat representation, and these are just variants of the first issue!

[batscoundrel]

I think I’ll want the second cover if my shop has it…

Yes I reblogged two posts related to this in a row, shush. I’m excited. I’ve been waiting for something like this for a long time.

Pleaseletthisnotsuck

[valeroyeaux]

STOP! DRAWING! URSULA! AS! SKINNY! TO! MAKE! HER! SEXY!

[arquus-malvaceae-deactivated202]

You know what’s just as obnoxious as people drawing fat characters as thin?

People drawing “Character X as Character Y” where one of the characters is thin and the other is fat, and it doesn’t matter which way it goes, the end result is somehow always a thin character.

Megara as Ursula is thin.

Alice as the Queen of Hearts is thin.

Amethyst as Shana is thin.

I’m just gonna start drawing Thin Character as Thin Character and the result will be JUST SO FAT.

[leopawd]

if u draw fat characters thin, u are not my friend

[archiemcphee]

One of our favorite Disney villains is Ursula, the tentacular sea witch from The Little Mermaid. In the movie she’s depicted as an human/octopus hybrid with black and purple tentacles. Recently BuzzFeed staffers Claire de Louraille and Andrea Hickey, with a little guidance from aquarists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, figured out what sort of cephalopod Ursula would resemble if she lived in specific regions of our oceans.

These awesome “scientifically accurate” illustrations include the dazzling wonderpus (if she lived in a tropical ocean), the lethally venomous blue-ringed octopus (if she lived in a coral reef), the transparent glass octopus (if she lived in the open ocean), the regal blanket octopus (if she lived in the pelagic zone, neither close to the bottom or near the shore), and - of course - Ursula resided in deep ocean waters, she’d be none other than the awesome colossal squid:

[via Nerdist and BuzzFeed]

[fremergencyfronfract]

drawing fat characters skinny isnt stylization its just fatphobic

[iwilleatyourenglish]

can you all imagine that there are people who claim to love Steven Universe but genuinely have trouble seeing Rose’s positive traits because of the amount of fat on her body, and Garnet’s positive traits because of the darkness of her skin and her undeniably black hair, and so on

can you imagine that people call themselves fans of the show, then actively work to erase what little representation fat people and people (particularly women and girls) of color have in media as a whole?? because they can’t enjoy a character and their design if it doesn’t look like the other 99% of media??

that’s so wild to me

[nerv-ii]

Just a reminder, that not every overweight/fat/chubby female character should have the stereotypical hourglass shape. All woman have different appearances, and only showing one body type that is considered the most attractive is not helpful.

[barefootdramaturg]

Valiant Launches Faith #1 - The Only Plus-Size Female Superheroine With Her Own Comic - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News

Last week, we told you that Valiant had at least one – and possibly several – new female-led series in the works to give their universe a leading female icon ala DC’s Wonder Woman or Marvel’s Captain Marvel. Now we have confirmation of the next such series, set follow in the wake of the previously... Read more »

This is so so important. I don’t like the way the article implies that it’s just a marketing ploy, but SO SO IMPORTANT

[kitkaloid]

Sayin bye to summer with Amethyst wearing something light…