Hello! This is the first longform piece of writing on this website.
Thank you for clicking on it.
I’m going to start by acknowledging that this is basically the writing equivalent of shooting blanks in the air in a neighborhood to keep the rent down. I know this.
From that title alone, you’re guessing many things about me and yes, they will be answered, CALM DOWN.
But I wanted to introduce myself just in case someone is going through this chronologically somehow.
Hello, I’m MapleMilk (or Maple J Milk for some reason) and I make stuff on the internet. You are on my website right now, actually.
I made a website to basically do what I’ve always wanted to do online, share a piece of myself and get random thoughts out of my head.
This is an example of that.
I have been doing Youtube since around January of 2018 and I need a break, which may become slightly halfway a little permanent because of various issues I have with the platform and the internet as a whole.
But that’s not relevant.
What is relevant is that I like Zines (pronounced “Zeenz”), they’re independent magazines that take various forms.
Being indie, they have a massive variation in topics and styles than traditional magazines do.
Discovering zines on itch.io was basically one of those subtle life changing moments because never have I read writing from people with that wide a mix of lifestyles.
A specific example I have is that I read this one zine about bootleg games and consoles written by someone from South America, I want to say Argentina.
Something with such a niche web of experience is my SHIT, dude.
I love people showing themselves with the most personal experiences possible.
I became obsessed with the South American experience with video games. I ask my Brazilian friend all sorts of gaming questions (mostly about Sega consoles) and I generally just poke people about their experiences with gaming, in general.
I cannot express enough how each and every one of your experiences is valuable.
Like, I’m gonna say it right here, randomly that you are loved and appreciated by someone and if you don’t think it, fuck it, get spiteful, do something to MAKE “them” love you and you’ll eventually make friends along the way.
But yeah, I got into Zines because they basically fulfilled my need for niche nonfiction media written in a casual tone.
I love when people autistically ramble about stuff, that’s literally my whole identity!
But the most important thing that Zines gave me is a window into queer writing.
Now, this is an introduction.
Hi, I’m Maple.
I want big floppy tiddies and a BIG ass.
Well, to be more specific, one day I want to get BACK on HRT because the United States healthcare system has failed me for the last time.
I’m not sure exactly how to describe my current thoughts of gender-
Yes, I do.
I’m transgender.
I am transfem.
I want to be girl!
It’s really that simple.
I do use “they” right now because it makes me feel comfortable due to kinda being in a shitty limbo.
But I already went through the arc of my life where I’m wondering what’s up with my gender stuff.
Like, at some point, just wrap it up and play Fallout: New Vegas, you know?
(Note: The author hasn’t finished Fallout: New Vegas)
I kinda go back and forth on transfem and nonbinary but I think the gist is that getting it through my head that no matter how I act, I have the right and, fuck, the OBLIGATION to become a cute ass woman despite it all kinda is the main thing.
So, as my first experience in writing on an independent blog style post NOT on a website marked by its massive amounts of censorship, <br>especially of people serving cunt (various queer creators and such), I’m gonna write something that only I could write, goddamn it. <br>
I’m sick of appealing to an audience that wouldn’t fuck with me anyway.
I’m gonna write my shit and post it and basically never think about it again because I’m working on another thing I needed to get out of my head.
Fuck Algorithms.
Fuck Money.
And
FUCK Numbers.
We’re really out here, BITCH.
Anyway, so Skunks are my favorite animal, by far.
I am quite fixated on them, now that I think about it.
Have you ever watched a video of a pet skunk?
They’re fucking adorable!
They just go and sniff around and just bite on things with their long ass teeth.
If you ever go and watch a skunk eat an apple they’re like
*smack* *smack* *smack*
*chew* *chew* *chew*
Skunks flail around wildly even if they’re chilling.
They waddle aimlessly even when they have a destination.
Even very home bodied domesticated skunks have a certain “anxiety” to them that most other animals don’t.
Skunks in particular show this emotion better than almost any mammal because when they feel strong emotions, their tails, like, physically frizz up and stand up.
Aside from the obvious, Skunks are just very silly pets.
But if you watch them sleep, they’re so cute.
Just like any other mammal, they can sleep on their side, their belly, sometimes their back.
I think the main thing with Skunks that you-
YES, YOU IN PARTICULAR
Have to do is kinda demystify them from being this weird, stinky, being
To being just another animal that exists and is cute and lovely in its own right and deserves to be pet and eat apples and go to the vet and play.
Just like dogs, skunks are allergic to chocolate.
That’s just one example of how similar they are that I wanted to use.
They’re just lovely animals and the world is needlessly cruel to them for no particular reason.
Skunks don’t just go around randomly spraying or anything.
If you live in the US, you probably live near some, but it doesn’t matter because you don’t notice them.
I think the answer with skunks, more than any other animal, is leave ‘em alone, goddamn it.
You might be seeing where I’m going with this but just give me a second.
As you can see, I have some strong thoughts on Skunks.
I love them immensely and I hope they’re all having a good day.
I’ve always liked skunks since I can remember existing but I always had to hide it because I was scared of what people thought.
I was in like third grade and we had to write our favorite animal on a piece of paper for class introductions and I distinctly remember writing down Shark or something because I wanted to appear cool to the other third graders.
To a certain extent, that kinda thing stayed with me.
I honestly still mildly fear that kinda snap judgment to this day as a grown ass adult.
Shame never gets easy to deal with, you just feel it less as time goes on.
The fact that you’re reading this is already a sign of personal growth from me.
But yeah, I love skunks.
Let me tell you why.
Skunks are the underdog.
They’re the oppressed animal.
The bullied.
The shamed.
The reviled.
And they rarely even do anything to deserve that set of horrible labels!
You ever watch a cartoon with a skunk character?
They always got something going on mentally.
I’ve never seen a cartoon with a skunk that has it all together.
If fucking Pepe Le Pew is the symbol for the animal, you know the game is fucked up.
Like yeah, okay, I’ll take sexual harassment for 100, Alex.
I think I’ve been so adamant about fixating on skunks because, honestly, nobody else is there for them.
I think the kinda love that I really respond to in the media is one that feels truly unconditional so if you can love a skunk you can love anybody!
They’re relatively high maintenance animals as pets but I don’t think that being high maintenance just means you’re inherently less lovable, it’s just that you have someone you share dedication with.
I don’t really know how to convey it, but I get really sad when I think about skunks or really any other animals getting hurt.
It also really fucks with me that Skunks, like Opossums have a very short lifespan relative to the industry standard Cats and Dogs.
Like, it REALLY fucks with me.
I don’t think I have physically cried in 6 or so years but it gave me that same deep pain of grief.
It was like a childhood dream cracking to pieces.
Even if I got a pet skunk like I’ve always wanted, our time together would be pitfully short because of some arbitrary biological constraint.
I really think it’s important to make sure those animals have as good of lives as they can.
But yeah, this brings me to my next point.
I made an OC around the end of 2021 or so.
I don’t remember how it went, but I was in the break room of a job I fucking hated and had for a year and a half and fucking hated every second of it, right?
It was a dark room filled with couches that people usually took naps in (i am people).
And I came up with an idea for a pair of characters.
Mind you, I had not drawn since middle school because of the sheer pressure I felt while drawing after a certain point.
It became less fun.
But something took over my body and I either wrote down the idea for or drew them on my phone.
I think I drew them on a cheap Huion tablet I got after I went home?
The stuff is fuzzy at this point.
But I went and drew a skunk woman and a dog man standing at a desk.
To my knowledge, these are the first long term OCs I have ever made.
Their names were Nina and Ducky (later changed to Teddy) and this moment changed my life pretty much instantly.
I can not express how much life affirmation you get by making characters.
That’s something only YOU can make.
I wanted to create something and I did it as easy as coming up with an idea and drawing it.
That was the start of my project, Freshy’s.
Something that gave me hope when I was hopeless and joy when I was joyless.
But I’ll save the historical details for the Freshy’s data page and then the art book that Dark Horse is gonna print.
The initial idea was kinda like a joke
A skunk and a dog work in a 24 hour convenience store.
The skunk is always sleepy because of the shitty shifts, which is ironic because Skunks are typically seen as Nocturnal (they come out during the day sometimes) and the dog is wide awake if not MORE energetic at 3 fucking AM than the skunk is.
This would lead to interesting interactions because of the inherent conflict between someone who is so energetic they can barely stand straight and someone who is so tired they can barely stand straight.
I was inspired by 3 in the AM PM and probably Kemono Friends or something thinking of the idea.
It was initially a romance story where the 2 work in a store together and they fall in love by sheer proximity.
Skunks work well for love stories because they kinda convey the idea that “even if I think I’m unlovable, there’s someone out who cares about me” and even if I didn’t write much in that era, trying to convey that message meant alot to me, you know?
Of course, Freshy’s isn’t really a love story right now as much as it is a comedy sitcom at best and literally doesn’t exist at worst.
Also, Teddy (the dog man) is definitely in the Todd from Bojack Horseman realm of mindspace where he’s too wacky in my mind now to fuck anybody.
Nina would, though. (I will get back to this)
So the vast majority of this essay hinges on my personal experiences with gender, skunks, and writing here so slow down if you need to.
I wrote Nina because I wanted a character I can relate to more than any other.
I love her deeply because she’s a part of me that just came out reflexively.
As someone with a fixation and neigh encyclopedic knowledge of skunks’ portrayal in media, I can say for certain that skunks VERY rarely get any kinda shine and if they do it’s not exactly depthful.
I’m pretty sure that anime in totality has never had a skunk be THE main character of a show and very VERY rarely in the main cast.
I’m pretty sure the examples mostly came out AFTER I thought of these characters, ironically enough.
Skunks are not native to Japan, so it makes sense.
The same is with transgender characters.
Barely any portrayal in media that is positive or depthful.
It’s getting a little better, honestly but it’s at the point penetration where it has become a political issue and you KNOW how these bitch ass motherfuckers out here are with politics *lights cigarette*.
Admittedly, Nina didn’t start off as trans fem.
I mean, I didn’t really even think about it either way?
It was a weird case of life kinda forming around a character.
Nina is a character I saw myself in to a fault.
To the point where writing her kinda helped me discover my gender stuff.
I’m like “wow, I wanna be really cute like her. I love my character”
(this is not good for writing depthful characters with realistic flaws by the way)
And honestly, she’s more of a self insert than I want to admit at points
But I think there’s nothing wrong with writing a character you relate to, after all, that’s how characters are made.
If you don’t relate to SOME aspect of your character, you’re probably writing a shitty political comedy.
But when I figured out my shit, I realized that it would really mean alot to me and people like me if more people wrote transgender characters that weren’t just a martyr, a flag bearer, a political checkers piece, etc.
I just wanted a character that is like me.
I try to be rational and conservative with how much of myself I put into her, but yeah, I do like 90s JRPGs like I decided to make one of her distinctive qualities, I do kinda fucking hate my job, I WAS very chronically sleepy when I wrote her,
Just alot of ourselves are put into what we make and I think it’s beautiful.
So that’s a big aspect of why I kinda thought of this essay.
Thematically, skunks are very trans fem coded animals to me.
They’re underappreciated.
They’re really anxious.
They’re kinda distinctive in a cultural way.
They like fruits.
They’re treated very poorly for just existing around certain people.
They smell kinda weird.
They’re very cute.
They like to show off their butts.
They all seem to have very poor eyesight for some reason???
They have very soft hair.
Stuff like that.
I do say that’s why I made old RPGs one of her distinctive qualities.
Mostly because I get an excuse to make jokes about games I like but also at this point, being autistic about old games is a trans fem stereotype.
Like one of the stereotypes that’s like “That’s so me lmaooooo” instead of “oh, i think that’s a hate crime wtf”
Fallout: New Vegas, Disco Elysium, Celeste, Read Only Memories, Va-11 Hall-A, the ENTIRE visual novel genre
These are examples of modern trans fem coded games.
Basically any game with an old soul and has alot of that cool gay shit in it.
I have no authority on Trans Masc stuff, I’m sorry.
I wish I knew more trans masc people.
If you’re reading this and are trans masc, hit me up.
We should be friends.
But yeah, they say “Be the change you want to see in the world” and I just want to see more skunks in media and transfem women and more shows about the media I like like 90s RPG with vibes and aesthetic and yuri.
Oh yeah, the yuri.
That sentence came back.
One aspect of Freshy’s that I started with and I wanted to integrate back into the project was the idea of romance.
The initial idea of a skunk and a dog falling in love despite their differences in species and inherent worldview works thematically in a squidbob kinda way but my heart wasn’t in it because as cute as Teddy is, he’s not fuck material.
I have made jokes and art about it in the past about him and Nina having sex or something but he’d more likely just hug and cuddle someone and think that’s enough and I like that for him.
Good for him.
I did have it in my brain that like me, Nina is absolutely as lonely and horny as the average twitter trans girl (that is very, extremely, embarrassingly, horny.).
Also, Lyn exists.
She’s the opossum assistant manager of the store that works with the other two alot.
I’m writing down that I had a joke that she canonically has had like a fuck ton of different partners and every time they need something done she goes “I know a guy” like Muscle Man and pulls out her phone to call one of her like, 5 college girlfriends or one of her 3 mechanic boyfriends or something.
But unlike another show, this wouldn’t be played for the laugh that “wow she’s so disloyal and fucks around alot lmaoooo” it’s just that she works the absolute WORST schedule at the store and she doesn’t have time to do anything when people are awake and she’s also kinda shitty at relationships and that could be explored.
Idk, I just had to mention that because it’s relevant and I wanted Lyn to be included too.
But yeah, Nina is super fucking horny, right?
I was thinking of this sub plot where she could take in a homeless kleptomaniac raccoon girl as her roommate so they could share rent and interesting adventures would occur and they would fall in love and I’d have some stiffly written Yuri chapter and then they become permanent girlfriends or something.
But I don’t think I’m ready for that kinda commitment yet, sorry.
Maybe later.
So yeah, there’s that.
I think also there are a LOT of transgender furries.
Like, obviously underground communities have both alot of queer people and alot of furries, like have you BEEN on Bandcamp?
I mean, I’m only half furry.
I’m a fake fan, I only like Kemono Friends and Regular Show and that type of shit, I wasn’t about this furry shit since day one.
Band for band on the furry scale, I’m losing EVERY TIME.
But I think Nina as a character I made so specific that only I could come up with her.
Like, I don’t think anyone else is coming up with the
*INHALE*
Young Adult, American, Transfem, Black, Toxic Retro Gamer, Skunk Girl, who works in a 7/11 style convenience store, who hates her job
*EXHALE*
That’s all me, baby.
And that’s the beauty of making in general.
The sky's the limit.
You can do whatever the fuck you want.
Again, there’s something life affirming that I will always repeat about making things because it’s something only YOU can make.
If you died right now, that particular set of experiences would just stop flat.
Sure, someone could emulate your style but they would never be able to emulate your evolution exactly.
But yeah, I am very much inserting my own ideas of what I like and trying to insert it as a symbol covering a vast spectrum of trans fems out there.
But I very much love skunks and I love all of my friends, queer ones included (this is written like the vast majority of my friends aren’t at least slightly queer, which is untrue).
I think it would be cool if people collected skunk plushies like sharks just because I want to see them be appreciated more.
I also think that in this weird 1960s-esque turning point for the perception of trans women in general, it’s not like adding more symbolic elements to attach to would be bad.
Obviously, a skunk isn’t the most glamorous animal to attach parts of your identity to, but I think they’re scrappy animals.
Despite all of the pain and suffering caused by their body and elements they can’t control, they’re still very cute animals that persevere despite it all.
I think that’s the main lesson here.
Skunks are strong animals.
Sure, they’re scared but they exist nonetheless, under your shed at this moment.
Check your shed.
And I think any trans fem people out there can persevere despite it all.
And with all of the negativity surrounding existing and wanting to grow cool breasts and wear skirts and kiss other women and stuff like that, it would be nice to remember that we are regular people as much as skunks are mammals.
Maybe just a little quirky.
And smelly.
I want to end this, firstly with an idea that I couldn’t fit in but skunks getting their glands removed can be equated to some gender affirming surgery, I’m sure, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it.
I also was gonna connect the shame and fear of being trans to that same idea of being afraid to share my favorite animal in third grade but I literally just thought about it.
And secondly, with saying that this is just my personal idea that I had to get out of me before I exploded.
I rushed through this.
One draft, no proofreading or evidence
This a purely vibe based essay or whatever.
If you don’t like it, you’re allowed to leave now.
Class is dismissed.
But I’m gonna write whatever the fuck I want and I don’t have to worry about appealing to anyone or anything.
I am free from my shackles so I’m gonna do whatever the fuck I want even more than on Youtube.
Thank you for reading this and contributing to the indie web, I know it was hard to get off of those 5 websites with screenshots from the other 4, I appreciate it.
Bye.