#also not a big deal! more like a reminder for me to go ooooooohhhhhh. i am operating on SO MUCH INTERNAL LORE

[moe-broey]

Another thing I'm always thinking about when making any kid design of an adult chara is. My biggest pet peeve. You see it in the kid banners So Badly. Where the chara is just a smaller version of their normal design. Which can work okay for some characters, sure, maybe. But I'm transgender and had a whole bitchass journey about it. From being unaware of my appearance entirely, my presentation determined by my mom and my sisters' hand-me-downs. To ultimately over-compensating SEVERELY, leaning heavily into expected and acceptable femininity, praying that the perfection would save me. Hell, even when I finally allowed myself to be trans, I presented quite differently than I do now. It took me a long time to grow into myself, to find my footing.

So like. Regardless if I'm hcing the chara as trans or not, I feel like it's important. To capture them at different stages of life, and to think about how THEY'RE thinking about their presentation. Whether they're thinking about it at all, or if they're thinking about it A Lot. And if it's the latter, then Why? Is it something they have fun with? Is it something they're anxious about, for whatever reason? Is it sort of. Foreshadowy? Idk how to explain it. But best example I've got is how I'm always putting a little bit of queerness in Alfonse.

LIKE. It's about identity. It's about growing into yourself. Flashes of What Could Be. Snippets of something that was always there. Or maybe it's about something that was stamped out of you. Something you "corrected", yourself. It also speaks to your environment. The hands that molded you. And once you're outside of that grip, what do you do? What's your next move? Once again, it's about identity.

All of that said, this does present. A dilemma. If I, as the artist, cannot balance the tightrope of "This character looked different as a kid but is still somewhat recognizably themselves" vs "That's just a completely new character. You Ship of Theseus'd it" LMFAOOOOOO RIP 😓😓☠️☠️☠️🧍