This was the first time I drew Shaw and Felix "together", at least on the same piece of paper. This was the second drawing I ever did of Felix. This became his canonical appearance. This is also the first color image, which means this was the first time I tried to decide what color Shaw's fur is. I briefly considered grey but ultimately decided on purple/lavender, something that remained consistent about the character afterwards. This also appears to be the first image for the series that has official dates. I drew Shaw on 2001.05.20 and Felix on 2001.05.21 the next day. It also says that this was 88 and 87 days before I would turn 18 respectively. So I guess you could consider this a transitory period from my childhood to my adulthood.
This was a significant step forward for me at the time. The first step was to actually create an officially gay male character (Felix). Now here is where I began to push the envelope, at least for myself. I had this vision of a cute boy holding a frilly colorful umbrella. As silly and tame as that might seem now, at the time it felt very transgressive. Here was a effeminate boy that I wasn't putting in a negative light. Instead he was to be an object of adoration for the main character.
At the time I was very proud how this came out (20 years ago). I was also apprehensive about this drawing. It is possible that no one, other than myself has ever actually seen it. Not even my family. Writing the derogatory terms on the paper was there so there could be no mistake about the meaning of this image. In that sense, this was a bold break away from everything I had been taught. It was transgressive in the sense that I had literally nothing to fall back on. There was no "gay rights" that I was aware of. There was no one I knew that was saying this was acceptable. Being gay was the most lame thing you could possibly be. You might as well call yourself a loser. What could be worse than not having a girl? Not wanting to have one. Being a boy wanting to be with a boy. It was the antithesis of boyhood. Not strong but weak, not a demonstration of virility but rather of impotence, not masculine but feminine. Its one thing to say you were "born that way". That you couldn't help that. Thats NOT what this was. This was me no longer simply assuming its bad unquestionably and for no reason. Its "unmanly" or "unnatural" isn't a justification, unless you can explain why those are necessarily and always bad things, and if not, when and how. Most people simply accepted that it was "bad" because to not say so would open you up to ridicule. In otherwords it was just pure peer pressure. That does not advance an actual argument. Does that make it automatically right? No. Of course not. And for the same reason. But nothing should just be asserted without actual justification. Fear is just a tool of control, and we know from history that control is not always good. Therefore "fear" in and of itself is not an argument. It could always just be a form of social control for nefarious ends. If morality is merely asserted for each and every specific action, how does one determine what is moral? Is it simply a matter of picking at random?
And if there were reasons ... why did no one ever actually say what they were? Why was it not "gay people are doing something morally wrong". Because no one in high school cared about that! The same ethics would say it was wrong to have sex before marriage with a member of the opposite sex, and yet that happened all the time and those who were having premarital sex were not pariahs. In fact they were higher on the pecking order, not lower. It wasn't about morality. It was simply about maintaining conventional gender roles through social ostracization. Its "gays are losers. Its lame and gross and anyone who engages in such will be no friend of ours". What is that? Where was the moral outrage in that?! There was none. Not amongst high schoolers. It was about social status. That's all. That is people going along with what they are taught out of fear and never questioning anything. That above all else is NOT AN ARGUMENT!
So without any proof that this was not bad, still I dared to question it. Dared to instead of bowing to fear take the world handed to me and turn it upside down. Not because it was right, but because I was not going to let my values simply be the product of fear.
That being said ... I was afraid. And I was unsure. This was my secret drawing for my "forbidden series". I remember drawing it on my bed with it facing towards me and my wall so no one could see what I was drawing. It's stayed hidden for 20 years likely ... until today.
Keywords
male
1,191,271,
gay
149,174,
intersex
15,833,
cabbit
5,644,
unknown species
3,374,
felix
685,
effeminate
415,
shaw
16,
felix yagablin
7,
shaw metrix
5
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Published:
3 years, 2 months ago
26 Nov 2021 02:07 CET
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