nyelloo it's zhenya | banner image: Karolina Matyjaszkowicz — Flicker in the Full Moon | he/him | rus/eng genderqueer trans guy http://fairy-of-mokosh.neocities.org
EEEEEEK!! IT'S MORBID! IT'S MONSTROUS! IT'S... BAD REPRESENTATION! 🪦 Putting the phobia in fat-phobia?
For decades, fat characters in horror films have been treated as punchlines, monsters, and plot devices for moral punishment. This Halloween, we're resurrecting and dissecting them on our own terms. With your participation, I'm looking to curate a collection of costume photos and artist essays that will serve as a fun yet cathartic showcase of fat representation in horror films. While I love a spooky, bloody good time, I also aim to call out the anti-fat tropes and moral panic that many of these films originally promoted. Love a costume challenge? Get creative! Add your own spin on the character! Make it camp! Make it drag! Join me in bringing fat horror characters to the spotlight with all the style, flair, and respect they were originally denied.
Project description and guidelines under the cut. Final deadline is October 1st, 2026.
Participation Rules:
1. Slots are reserved on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you end up having to give up your slot, please notify me ASAP so that another person can have a chance to participate.
2. This project is intended for fat cosplayers. The use of fat suits for this project is strictly prohibited. If you identify as fat, it's okay if you don't match the exact body type of the character you're cosplaying.
3. We are starting with 40 character slots open, but you are more than welcome to propose a character that is not on the list. I will cap this project at 50 participants.
4. The deadline for artist statements/reflections is September 15th. The deadline for cosplay photo submissions is October 1st.
5. Please get in touch and send over your written essays before the deadline! After the 9/15 deadline, unconfirmed spots will be released to other participants.
CONTENT WARNING: These films may be triggering to watch. Full disclosure: I haven't seen a majority of the films listed (sorry if most of them SUCK) but you can expect them to rely heavily on fatphobic tropes, fuel anti-fat moral panic, and exploit fatness for shock value. The goal of this project is to draw attention to the fatphobia and lack of fat representation within the horror genre, so please continue with this in mind.
Participation is voluntary as I am currently unable to offer compensation for this project.
Artist statement prompts:
Tell us a little about yourself. What kind of art do you enjoy making? Describe your relationship to horror. How has anti-fatness impacted your experience as a horror fan and/or cosplayer? Halloween in general? What's your favorite thing about horror, and what are your hopes for future fat representation within the genre? Lastly, what's bringing you joy this coming fall?
Film reflection prompts:
Please write a brief synopsis of the film and a description of the character you chose. Had you seen this movie before, and does it mean anything to you? How did you feel about the way that fatness was represented in this film? Analyze how this character either reinforced or broke away from anti-fat tropes. (A few films may even have GOOD representation - if you got one of those, I'd love to hear your thoughts!) Walk us through the artistic choices you’re making for your costume. Did you decide to reinvent the character or stick to the source material? If you had the chance to rewrite this story, what would you have changed to humanize this fat character, if at all possible? Go nuts.
I am collecting emails so that I can reach back out to you all in a month or so for your photos and artist statements/reflections. Thank you so much for being a part of this project! Looking forward to seeing what kooky stuff you come up with!
Morbidly yours,
@fatliberation 🪦
EEEEEEK!! IT'S MORBID! IT'S MONSTROUS! IT'S... BAD REPRESENTATION!
Putting the phobia in fat-phobia?
For decades, fat characters in horror
Please review the available character slots below and click on the button to sign up. One character per person. Do not sign up without also
And speaking of Sophia Tolstoy, her diaries are just so depressing.
“I am to gratify his pleasure and nurse his child, I am a piece of household furniture, I am a woman. I try to suppress all human feelings. When the machine is working properly it heats the milk, knits a blanket, makes little requests and bustles about trying not to think […].“
She wrote this when she was 19, one year into her marriage to Leo and as she was pregnant with the first of his 13 children.
A few years later, when she was 25 or so:
“I am so often alone with my thoughts that the need to write in my diary comes quite naturally … Now I am well again and not pregnant—it terrifies me how often I have been in that condition. He said that for him being young meant “I can achieve anything”. For me […] reason tells me that there is nothing I either want or can do beyond nursing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and loving and caring for my husband and babies, all of which I know is happiness of a kind, but why do I feel so woeful all the time, and weep as I did yesterday? I am writing this now with the pleasantly exciting sense that nobody will ever read it, so I can be quite frank with myself […].“
During her 12th pregnancy she wrote about taking scalding baths and jumping from high pieces of furniture to try and miscarry. And at one point while reading her husband’s diary (which he told her to read) she found the sentence “There is no such thing as love, only the physical need for intercourse and the practical need for a life companion.” In her own diary she wrote “They ebb and flow like waves, these times when I realise how lonely I am and want only to cry…”
A few years before her husband’s death, she published a cycle of prose poems titled “Groans”, under the pseudonym “A Tired Woman”.
“I have served a genius for almost forty years. Hundreds of times I have felt my intellectual energy stir within me and all sorts of desires - a longing for education, a love of music and the arts… And time and again I have crushed and smothered these longings… Everyone asks, “But why should a worthless woman like you need an intellectual or artistic life?” To this question I can only reply: “I don’t know, but eternally suppressing it to serve a genius is a great misfortune.”
hmmm now that's a tricky question... There's so many words! I don't know if I have a single favourite but one that comes to mind randomly now that is quite good is жиже (zhi-zhe, it means less thick, about e.g. sauce or something)
i think being proud of where you come from is one of those things that becomes fun the more specific you get. like "proud to be english" bad rancid vibes. makes you sound like the kind of person who rants about immigrants. "proud to be from yorkshire" better vibes. i cannot deny the yorkshire cultural heritage. "proud to be from pocklington" absolutely fucking hilarious please never let anybody kill your pocklington pride.
"One time a piano student asked me: 'Why play the piano if these days my tablet or smartphone can do it automatically better than me?'
He then showed me several apps that played music using scores.
I explained to him: 'Your cell phone always plays that Debussy score in exactly the same way. You, on the other hand, with your emotions and flaws, will never play the score the same way twice. You will not play the same way on a sunny day when you have just fallen in love as on a cloudy day when a relative has just died. Music is not just a score - you too are part of the music. Art includes you in the experience; your human imperfections are also part of the work.'"
- Nobuo Suzuki, Wabi Sabi: The Wisdom in Imperfection
Newest quilled sheath is coming along nicely! Pared with a bone handled longknife. Traditional quillwork embroidery by Stephanie and knife by Iron John of Iron Tree Forge
The heavily worn tunic of the Bernuthsfeld Man, patched out of 45 single pieces of cloth, 20 different fabrics in 9 different weaving patterns. 680–775 CE, Lower Saxony, Germany.
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