#cattype

I wanted to make a comic for International Asexual Day but I thought it was the 16 and not the 6th. orz

There's some stories that I keep meaning to make into comics for Ace Week or Pride Month but I keep putting it off or chickening out. They're stories that involve a lot of cringe and a lot of misunderstanding so they're hard to talk about. I practice retelling them to myself to better understand them and find the easiest way to tell them but the scars still run deep.

So for now, I just wanna share some of the morals of my stories without the stories.

-If you're struggling to find a "missing part of you" then maybe that part wasn't meant to be there in the first place.

-Some people are just preconditioned to interpret things as sexual or romantic even when you explain why they aren't.

-Don't take advice on your sexuality from people who don't think your sexuality exists.

-Just because you've finally convinced someone that you're not straight, doesn't mean they've totally grasped the concept of asexuality. Some things take time to sink in.

-There are people who might react badly to your sexuality. Often it's uncomfortable, in some cases it might be violent. But just because something MIGHT happen doesn't mean it WILL happen. You can't base the way you live your life on a maybe. You don't need to be scared.

-If someone doesn't believe asexuality exists or thinks they can "fix" you, then that's THEIR character flaw, not YOUR problem. You have a right to exist and be yourself.

-We're lucky enough to be living in a time when asexuality is becoming more accepted and better known. Things could be better but they're still getting better. Hell! Do you have any idea how lucky you are just to be reading posts like this? I'm talking to YOU tweenager who's just figuring themself out!!

Bonus: This is purely my personal experience so I can't guarantee you'll have the same luck as me. Almost all the times I've come out to someone I've known IRL it's been awful but with one exception all the times I've talked about my asexuality online have been positive. Not only that but apparently half the people I've known online have been asexual. Maybe it's because everyone I've met IRL I've only met through happenstance i.e. I only knew them because we were in the same class. The asexual internet friends are a little harder to explain but it might just because younger people are more open to more options. It's not just "gay or straight" any more. Kids can go online and say "oh, asexuality is a thing? I think I might be asexual" (Again, you kids have NO idea how lucky you are! I only had an alternative lifestyles story on 20/20 that I saw one time as a kid that I mostly forgot about!)

Happy Belated Birthday!

Well, not too much to say here that isn’t in the images. Except if you want to draw something for me, you don’t have to treat my birthday as a deadline. Go at your own pace. Enjoy yourself. Eat a cupcake. Be a fish.

I made all these to post on Twitter but I made the first image here just for this post so that people who see this while scrolling don’t need to wonder why I’m suddenly making demands. And also to add some self-awareness. I’m so afraid of people judging me for asking for things and I hate it when I make an ass of myself because people thought they were being polite by not saying anything. Fuck that. I’d rather be told I’m being an ass than lay awake at night years later thinking about what an ass I was. Just be polite when you say it.

But on the flip side, I do think it’d be kinda cool if the idea of art wishlists caught on. An if it could range from “Draw my OC/Persona!” to “Draw my stupid headcanon!”. Although that could get out of hand. If I do this next year I’ll definitely need to start on it a month ahead.

My birthday’s tomorrow (Aug 19) and a few days ago I had the idea of making a wishlist of things people can draw form me (plus a reminder to buy my stuff and donate to my Patreon and Ko-fi) on my Twitter account. Of course that list included several of my personas and OCs so I pulled together some old drawings I had and made some ref sheets with some added notes. I’m very pleased with how they turned out and they were a lot of fun to make which is the main reason I wanted to post them here. 

I also wanted to post the ref sheets on Instagram but ended up going completely overboard. I had started by adding patterns behind the ref sheets to fit them into squares and ended up recreating the whole list in picture form. I worked an entire day on it then I woke up the next day and was like, “...I didn’t need to do this!! I just wanted to share the ref sheets!” So because I worked so hard on them and because Instagram doesn’t like tumblr that’s why those last four images are here.

You can read a recreation of the thread on my personal website with extra commentary here: https://www.cattype.net/single-post/ref-sheets (Another birthday wish of mine is that you’ll leave a comment or like.)