a// strap in, it's a long one. little odd on the formatting because it's not letting me attach more than three images.
my fursona predates us& knowing we're a system, knowing we're trans, the whole lot. until recently i was the system's only illustrator -- excalibur's gotten into it the last year and he's killin' it <3 -- so when it came to drawing a 'me' at like fourteen, my ideas
mostly won out despite the mixed-up pre-system mess we were in.

- 1.png (235.51 KiB) Viewed 197 times
- the first iteration of my dragon (first from left) was never actually drawn at the time. the art here was drawn retrospectively in 2016, by myself.
- the first time this critter was actually depicted, though, they'd already lost the lighter markings. my first drawings of them no longer exist; here's (second from left) art from
a good friend from 2015. i keep forgetting we met our core friend group on
r/furry. whough. this design held for a few years. not much going on besides bouncing around various oversaturated greens. someone drew them with a pink highlight in the mane as a joke one time and it stuck. shape and stature was messed around with a lot.
- the rightmost above image was drawn by 'polymorphpete' on then-twitter. i think i've seen them around on bsky nowadays, but i can't recall their handle. the other character depicted is our friend magic.

- 2.png (402.89 KiB) Viewed 197 times
- gender identity went from 'a guy' to '...demiboy?' as i realised, hey, wait, all this gender stuff could apply to me, too. we commissioned
catboots in 2017 (leftmost), for the first time of what would be many (we should commission them again..!). things held steady for another two-ish years, with that pastel palette and a generally softer design gradually winning out.
- come 2019, we commission catboots yet again (second from left) - and by this point i've been having more thoughts about gender identity. i sheepishly ask, 'hey, what if my dragon had boobs?' catboots proceeded to perform their most powerful move: taking my commission prompt and dropkicking me with it. oops! girl now. this held pretty good for a while! the only change since was the addition of slight optional gradients to the scales, which, again, is courtesy of catboots.
- in mid-december 2021, we began to realise we were plural - or more accurately, kate caught everyone else off-guard, and it's been a five-year process of us all finding our separate selves after the initial "hey wait what the fuck" moment. by 2024, with the dual realisations of us having all always existed but mixed-up, and 'wait, i have never considered myself human like, ever' i realised i had some more work to do on my dragon, and drew up a new reference sheet (rightmost, cropped for formatting's sake). 'nother set of ears, formalisation of many scattered design concepts, 'nother set of wings, new legs. that's a
creature, right there. gradually unpicking all the design influences from everyone else i share this skull with, gradually getting a bit more
me.

- 3.png (1.1 MiB) Viewed 197 times
fast forward to november 2025. we've moved out, we've each become more ourselves, we've made huge personal progress on all sides. i'm getting that kind of restlessness again, needing to develop this shape further to fit me once more. i start sketching up more of my dragon.. playing around with all kinds of ideas, tweaks to the old and redos from the same base principles. nothing sticks quite right, but i get close, on and off for months. in may 2026, we attend confuzzled, our first con. it was lifechanging. flips switches in our brain. we've struggled with not-diagnosed-but-it-looks-a-lot-like-cptsd for about a decade, and one of the biggest problems was a fear of being perceived. cfz didn't solve everything, sure, but that specific trauma?
vaporised it. not stressed to be outside any more, not scared of being witnessed. that-- and the fact that i needed to draw her for a tabletop adventure, ahah-- was the final kick up the arse i needed to be able to tie months of effort together.
..having reviewed everything, though, i think i might put those light scales on the snout back again. they were kinda cute.
- ase <3
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