Swoops Waffle Cone

All of their crops are out of season. Their windmill that supplies electricity breaks every time it rains. Every waking hour of their life is toiling in the garden or tending to livestock. They live in a single bedroom sod house with pennies to their name and have to walk to the river to collect water.

They've almost starved to death multiple times. Pa has been electrocuted fixing the windmill several times. The livestock runs away constantly because it can't get groomed in time. The farm dog is sick constantly. They constantly rock uncomfortable moodlets because they're sore from their farm toil.

and like. do we have to keep gently phrasing things to protect naturally-thin people's feelings. in my life it has never been fashionable to be fat. "fat" is still a bad word. there has never been institutional power pushing people to gain weight; no trillion-dollar industry to "fix" skinny people. a larger body type has never been over-represented in models, influencers, celebrities. sure, people might say "i'm worried for your health," but they do it with respect and gentleness, like they're talking to a scared deer.

every single fucking time i talk about this, i have to be so careful with what i say, in case i offend even one skinny person. it is just true that skinny people have social capital across many cultures. there is a reason you almost never hear someone say "i wish i was fat," but you will constantly see people say "I wish i was thin." and yet inevitably some skinny person will tell me: i thought you wanted body positivity. it is the same fucking attitude as when a cis man says "when you say men have power, well, i've been bullied for being a man. i thought you believe in mental health awareness. don't you know men have a higher suicide rate?"

two things can be true at once: your experience being bullied for being thin was terrible. and people with larger bodies probably have it worse.

i have been big and small. i know many other people who have been big and small. trust what i'm about to tell you: being small is much easier. the world is kinder to you. people treat you better. honestly, this pattern occurs pretty much regardless of gender - my guy friends have confided that they'd rather be bullied for being thin than be bullied for being fat. if you're skinny, the pressure might be to gain weight, sure, but it's often to do so in a way that keeps you skinny - to gain muscle, specifically.

thinness is seen as innate and natural, genetic. whereas carrying any fat - that is a moral failing. it is assumed to be related to your character, your personality. i have seen people equate it to discipline, to hygiene. that bias is why we need to talk about this.

If I was harmless and small, and easy to hold, you would love me. If I was a worm you could put me in the soft earth and I would be helpless in your care. Of course you could love me, but could you love me if I stung you, bit you, pulled against you, hid and didn't understand you but wasn't harmless or helpless at all?

We build wildlife preserves. Often explicitly for the protection of animals and ecosystems that can and have killed humans.

Whenever a whale gets stranded on a beach, CROWDS show up ad risk getting bludgeoned to death trying to get it back into the water.

Every Zoo has a reptile house full of venomous snakes and a team of humans dedicated to giving them the best quality of life possible.

There are volunteer beekeepers who will travel for miles and miles and hours and hours to relocate an entire hive.

There are people who rehabilitate dangerous dogs and horses

There are people who restore structurally unsound houses

There are people who study the way that fire burns so it can rejoin the ecosystem and not be smothered on sight.

Every day, millions of people get up and devote themselves to things that can and will kill them by their nature. Things they can't touch or show kindness to. Things they can't go near. Things that are wholly incapable of loving them back.

And they do it because they love them.

Everything dangerous, everything poisonous, everything 'useless'- absolutely everything has someone, often many thousands of people, who loves them exactly as they are, without expectation that their affection will be returned.

hello! i am crumb cat!

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