Red

Celebrating National Ice Cream Day the right way, with my triple scoop. 😋🤎🤍🩷

I just hope a certain creature doesn’t steal it. 🦇

Tai the Lioness! Revenge on @/taithehunter ! 🛡️

What’s this smug bastardo smirking about? Attack on @/nocturnes.water ! ⚔️

Tori the SeaSnake! I haven’t had much practice drawing non-furred creatures, so this was a fun challenge!

Of course, I had to draw my Trister Studio suit sibling, Armin! Attack on @siberiran ! ⚔️

Simon Holt the Belgian Malinois! Revenge on @/bogandoq ! 🛡️

Kitties In Love 💛🤎

One of the nuances within my asexual identity that I grew into was my demisexuality. As previously mentioned, growing up, I was surrounded by allosexual people in every walk of my life. Not only was I feeling isolated from my peers, but I found that when it came to dating, even my family couldn’t understand how I was feeling. Despite holding more traditional views of relationship, which align a lot with the “emotional connection before attraction” mindset of demisexuality, every time I tried to explain my need to become friends before considering going on any official date and how people could become attractive to me given time and a connection, I always was left feeling unheard. Despite this feeling, when learning about demisexuality, I wondered “Isn’t that normal?”. And it took me way entirely too long to realize that no… no it is not. One night stands, dating apps, picking up people at bars, random hookups, strip clubs and sex work, none of these things would be as prevalent as they are today in a primarily demisexual society. As it turns out, demisexuality wasn’t the norm that I was raised with, but traditionalism, and after a little dissection, the revelation that those who adhered to those traditional views of relationships were still at their core allosexuals was an interesting one. Going from a false sense of normalcy to realizing that, once again, you fall outside of it is an illuminating experience, to say the least.

Aceflux is a label that I’m still exploring, but so far, I like the way it fits. Another nuance to my asexuality, being aceflux describes my attitude towards sex on any given day. I go through periods of being very sex-favorable and others of being pretty apathetic towards it. Essentially, it feels as though I’m more ace on some days than others.

For as long as I can remember, I have never been comfortable conforming to feminine gender norms. From throwing my baby dolls on the floor in disgust to turning my nose up at figure skating in favor of playing hockey to the way that I’ve styled, dressed, and presented myself since I was old enough to do so, I’ve just never felt at home in a feminine box, no matter how hard I tried to fit in one. In fact, I went through childhood and into adulthood with the thoughts that I’d be better off as a boy. My features would suit a boy better. My personality and interests would be looked upon more favorably if I was a boy. If I were a boy, would my family show me the same kind of reverence that my brothers received? Those thoughts permeated my being, but having no concept of gender outside of birth sex at the time, those thoughts were left unexplored.

By the time I was exposed to a more fluid concept of gender, I had come to accept the more feminine aspects of myself and acknowledging that I’m not entirely at home in the box of masculinity either. That being said, my preferences still lean heavily masculine, or as I came to realize after lots of introspection, gender-neutral. Though I’m still not entirely sure if these experiences would qualify me non-binary, I’ve adopted the label gender nonconforming wholeheartedly, as I reject the gender stereotypes of both masculinity and femininity, yet feel comfortable with embracing aspects of both.

Whether it was a sheltered and religious upbringing, being a year or more younger than my peers, an early manifestation of my asexuality, or a combination of all of the above, I grew up with a profound disconnect from sexuality of any kind. I was oblivious to the things that those within my age group (and sometimes even younger) were engaging in and appalled when learning about the act itself. I couldn’t fathom how so many would want to do something that I saw as so gross. Though I eventually grew out of being a sex-repulsed asexual (I actually lean more sex-favorable these days), and after finding more nuance within my ace identity, I still find myself puzzled by the lengths that allosexual folks will go to for even a scrap of sexual pleasure. From lying to others to convince them to have sex to even getting down with those that they deem unattractive to common views on virginity, I have just never understood the seemingly society-wide desperation to do it. Of course, being older and more experienced has given me an idea of why, but I’m still that person who told a guy to stop sexting them because I was playing Apex Legends while I was trying (and failing) to have a hoe phase. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I just don’t see what the big deal is.

Why not make life any colour you like?

When choosing a song for this post, I struggled to find something that really would fit the nature of a post like this. Any Colour You Like jumped out at me because of what the message seemed to be, which is that you are the artist of your own life’s canvas, carving out your own path. Fitting, I thought, for a post about embracing who I am and refusing to let anyone else dictate how I should be.

However, when I looked into the song a little deeper, I learned that it’s actually supposed to be about the illusion of choice. Despite such a drastic difference between the two meanings, instead of feeling a disconnect between the song and the message I hoped to communicate with it, I felt like that made it all the more fitting. After all, I chose these things about myself about as much as I chose the freckles on my face, which is to say not at all.

At the end of the day, no matter which meaning you’d rather take away from the song, there’s some part of it that rings true either way. You may not be able to choose which colors are woven into the fiber of your being, but you can absolutely choose how to color your life in light of it. So why not choose any colour you like?

I inherited a lot from my father, from green eyes to a taste for really good music, from a love of hockey to an indomitable will that never shrinks back from being loudly and proudly different. Happy (Late) Father’s Day!

I had a lot of fun with ArtFight last year, so I’m back for my second year! GO TEAM MYSTERY! ❤️

I thought I’d have more FOMO from missing Phoenix Fan Fusion this year. Instead, I find myself increasingly glad that I made the choice to stay home, relax, and save my money, especially with how many people are sharing their negative experiences. Maybe I’ll catch it next year, but honestly furry conventions remain my higher priority.