Fox McCloud had always managed his weight carefully, his vulpine figure remaining plain, fit, and trim. The expert pilot found himself struck with an inexplicable and overpowering sense of dejá vu when he wandered into his bathroom that morning. As plain as day, he had gotten fat. Not just a little chubby - properly FAT.

His denial-gripped mind had ignored this fact for as long as possible - he had put off his typical healthy eating habits and gym visits for months now, with that weekly weigh-in always finding some way to get pushed back. But, whether by groggy accident or some deliberate moment of reflection, he’d finally marched his wobbly, overfed form to the scale. It’s judgement, uttered by both an artificial voice and written on a glowing screen, was swift and merciless.

“PUT DOWN THE FORK! >:[“

Fox groaned in annoyance, remembering the primitive robotic brains that companies insisted had to infest absolutely every appliance these past few years.

Peering over his bloated belly in scorn, he barked, “Put down the fork?! What’s that supposed to mean, you worthless bucket of bolts!”

The system snarked back, “Well, Fox McLARD, if you paid any attention to your user manual, you would know that each stage of fatassitude - or, as laymen call it, weight in pounds - has a corresponding jab, insult, or aggravating remark in line with how overweight you are at a given time. In this case - ‘PUT DOWN THE FORK! >:[‘ translates to 284 pounds!”

Fox groaned, his hands planted on his plusher-than-usual hips, “First off - there’s no way in hell that number’s right, I’m in perfectly peak condition! Your cheap circuits are bad enough by default, but something must’ve gotten in them. Got rust on the brain, I’m sure - and second off, what kind of scale insults a guy over a couple of pounds?!”

“Insults have been statically shown to improve exercise capacity in wayward wideloads by 0.08% - and, they increase overburdened, near-destruction scale morale and vindication by 500% - and if you don’t understand any of that, you fat furball, all your denial won’t change the fact that you just WON’T PUT DOWN THE FORK!”

Moments later, a terrified, semi-sentient scale could be heard rattling, screaming, laughing and bouncing down the garbage shoot of the penthouse complex that Fox McCloud happened to live in. Other residents who listened closely to the racket coming out of their garbage disposals heard all manner of colorful insults barking out of it - but one crucial line nearly slipped notice.

“You haven’t seen the last of me, doughboy - and I certainly won’t be able to miss your wide rear, hah! OW! Grr… I’ll get you one day, for this - don’t you forget it, STARFLAB!”

Fox had already blissfully forgotten about that insufferable scale as he settled in for a heavier-than-normal morning breakfast of a doze buttery, syrup soaked pancakes, thick, greasy bacon, and triple-choco-crunch cereal. He licked his lips as he prepared to tuck in - he deserved this a meal like this after- what was he upset about again? Oh, who cares… it was time to eat! As he gobbled down his oversized breakfast, Fox simply couldn’t shake the sense that this was all a little too familiar…

—-

So, if any of you recognize this piece, it’s with good reason! This is actually a kind of redraw of one of my favorite pieces from all the way back in 2019 - It’s Too Early For This - which was my very first piece of fat Starfox fanart. Back in June, I had the idea of redrawing and updating this as well as making variations featuring the rest of the Starfox crew to be featured on Teepublic as fanart designs.

However, Teepublic became absolutely overrun with AI-generated spam around the time, so I lost the motivation to finish the project. However, I stumbled across this and a few other finished designs while looking through my folder of things to post, and I saw it as an excellent excuse to do a bit of writing as well!

I’m not sure if I’ll ever post these designs to Teepublic like I originally planned, but if anyone has any interest in it, I’d certainly be happy to. I’ll probably post the next couple of these sometime in the coming weeks - I hope you all enjoy this fun, fatty piece!