Holy wow, my cosplay got shared on a pretty big group called Elite Girl Gamers, which is pretty rad!  There’s a mix of comments about it, from me being awesome to me promoting some unhealthy lifestyle by simply existing.  In the end, everyone is entitled to their opinion, it’s just interesting to see the different view points and people going back and forth about me and what I do, and what people view as being inspirational or not.

Honestly though, cosplay, to me, will always be about having fun. There’s no reason to tell someone they can’t have fun based on superficial things like weight or race or gender or whatever.  We’re dressing in costume as fictional characters, who really has the right to tell someone that they’re doing it wrong? Who sets the rules?  Someone says I’m too fat to be Wonder Woman but, in an instant, Gal Gadot – who is playing Wonder Woman – looks too frail and isn’t big enough.  We could get a room full of Wonder Women and I can guarantee you that none of them will be perfect, because someone is going to point out something.  No one is perfect, we don’t live in a perfect world, and frankly I don’t want to.  I want the diversity and the differences between us.  I’d be boring if we were all the same.

Truthfully, people already have to deal with ridiculous beauty standards outside of this community, and people seem to forget that this community is supposed to be enjoyable.  Being told that I’m fat isn’t something that only happens in cosplay, society already has its never consistent standards of beauty and I grew up being told that I’m wrong in some way: too fat, black girls don’t do that, or that, and other such things.  We have magazines that tell us how to lose weight while telling us how to bake a cake, they tell us how to diet, then it changes that diet, then it changes that diet. We’re told curves are in, then they’re not, then they’re in again – but don’t get too curvy, but then you’re not curvy enough, then we want thigh gaps and flat tummies, but not too flat.  

Then you see that the “beautiful” people get photoshopped anyway.  

It’s a mess, it always has been a mess, it always will be a mess, there’s never going to be a set answer to what “acceptable” is because people change their opinion all the time.  

Am I setting a bad example by walking around with my rolls and flabby arms?  People think fat means lazy, but then fat walks out the door and doesn’t sit at home all day but then that’s just gross to look at.  So you don’t want fat to be lazy yet when its not lazy its not appealing to look at. You can’t have it both ways.  You won’t have it both ways.  And, for that matter, why does me being outside need to concern you?  Why are you so focused on the physical?  Is the smile not enough?  The costume? Me being happy and living my life?  Who made you dictator of my lifestyle?  Out of all of the hatred that exists in this world why is one fat girl setting the bad example?  

She’s not.  You just think she is, and it makes you uncomfortable that she doesn’t think she’s a bad example, and others don’t think she’s a bad example, but an inspiration, a reason to get out there and join in on the fun.  Because that’s what cosplay is, and cosplay never once said that fat people weren’t allowed to come out and play.