Bunny Buisness

Menagerie, Part II

Raven Steres — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is my submission for the third Midway Menagerie event, though only my second entry as a whole. August was unusually busy, and - most significantly - involved a lot of travel, leaving me without access to my computer during much of it. As such I had no (simple) way to update my website, and rather than fight through the process of using my home server as an impromptu CI worker, I simply did not submit a post last month.

This month, however, I have no intentions of repeating that performance; and, assuming you are reading this, I have succeeded. The theme this time around is Identity and the Self - another heady subject that I don't really know how to begin to tackle, but will gamely attempt to do so anyways.

For anyone unfamiliar, I have a character by the name of Riven. They are a black and white patterned rabbit, and pretty much always wear a huge witch's hat. I am quite fond of them, though their design has changed many times since they were first conceived of - the "bunny witch" aspect has persisted, but very little else. Notably, I don't know if I would describe them as a "fursona", per se - I often use them as an avatar to represent myself, but they were never designed to be "myself but as an animal". I created them as simply a design I thought was appealing, and they became my representative in furry spaces mostly due to my own lack of any other characters to use for that purpose.

Indeed, if I had to describe Riven as a character, I would say that they have a number of traits I admire but very much do not possess. I often think of them as a figure of quiet grace. They are laconic, they keep a cool head under pressure, they move with precision and elegance. The whole thing comes together to make them seem somewhat cool and aloof, projecting a mysterious allure. Now, I don't know if you've met me, but "quiet" and "graceful" are not terms I would use to describe myself. I am loud about my emotions - eager and excited, always talking, frequently acting before my better judgement has a chance to kick in. I'm not very skilled in any one discipline; I'd call myself a "serial hobbyist", if anything - constantly jumping from one interest to the next.

The funny thing about all this, however, is that this distinction has basically never mattered. The thing I love about being in this community is how diverse the spectrum of fursonas can be - not just in species and color, obviously, but in detail, design, and backstory. There are those who design characters to represent themselves, sure, but for each of those there are just as many characters created to be cool, or unusual, or just plain funny. Each of these - each blue dog, each sentient pool toy, each drone (both in the aviation sense and... otherwise) - is a piece of art made by one person as part of this massive collage of culture we share. It's kind of magical.

Ultimately, I am very fond of Riven. They are distinctly not "me" - but they are a part of me, and an important part of my relationship with furry; perhaps I should let them out to play more often.

My, a curious mansion this is, to be sure - a whole page of writing about myself? Strange - but I have seen stranger. Well, if this is to be an account of who I am, then I daresay it would be incomplete without a few words of my own.

I have had many names; some mere pseudonyms, some titles, some earned and some given. Sell-sword; scholar; wild-blood; witch - all these and more. You may call me Riven. By trade, I am a brewer of potions and tinctures. However, if you should find yourself in a particular kind of trouble - the kind which you think inescapable - I may be able to help.

The night grows deeper - I cannot tarry long. To you, dear reader, I bid good fortune. And to this unknown author, who seems to know me so well - seek, and you shall find.

— R.N.

Menagerie, Part I

Raven Steres — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is my submission for the first of (hopefully many) Midway Menagerie events. If you somehow reached this page without context on what that is, I refer you to Lark's original post on the subject. With that aside, let us begin.

Fandom and Community

Goodness, where to begin? I'll say this - I have not historically been much into "fandom", as a general rule. I definitely get invested in various media - I flush somewhat remembering my time obsessed with Doctor Who, Firefly, Welcome to Night Vale, and others - but I find that this rarely manifested as the typical trappings of fandom. I didn't make much fanart or write much fanfic, I never went to any events or expos, and I rarely interfaced much with the online communities that surround these properties. I couldn't tell you exactly why this is, though I have my suspicions.

Firstly, even for media which I still feel very attached to - Steven Universe, for an example - I have very little impulse to attempt to engage with it creatively. I don't feel much ownership over these characters - I just enjoy watching them do what they do. Perhaps it's to do with my ADHD's desire for novelty - I don't want to make art of something I've seen before, especially when it's already been done so well.

Secondly, much of the fan community exists in large online spaces, which I often feel uncomfortable in. Too much information coming in at all times, too many social expectations, too much for me. I would lurk and consume what people publish, but I rarely mustered up the courage to engage with anyone. To me, these people were as unapproachable as the stars on TV, not other humans typing away at 2am because they, too, had once again neglected sleep.

My experience with the furry fandom started out very similarly. I existed in online spaces, sure, but I never spoke up. I knew what people were talking about, but didn't feel like part of the conversation. It was only when I found out that these gay little animals in my computer actually meet up in real life and hang out that I realized what a joy it was to be part of the community. Being able to talk face to face made everything so much easier - these were no longer nebulous titans, but actual ~~people~~ animals with their own personality and quirks.

My reservations about making "fanart" also melted away - rather than media properties that employ highly skilled artists to create beautiful work, these are individuals who have their personal favorite guy. They'll eagerly show me their characters and be delighted when I hand them a drawing in return. I'm not comparing myself to professionals - I'm handing them the proverbial second cake.

In a way, furry is the way of engaging with fandom I didn't know I needed. It has similar aspects - the conventions, the art, the connection - but the structure is shifted just enough that everything just clicks for me. I'm not flooded by messages online, I'm not holding my art to the standards of a professional team, I'm just a part of a group of welcoming people excited about their critters. I really am delighted to have found this community, and I hope to stay for a long time to come.

Colophon, Part I

Raven Steres — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Shamelessly stolen from a dear friend, I thought an apt first post on this site would be the creation of a colophon, of sorts. For those not familiar with the term:

Colophon (n.) - An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts about its publication.

This will not be nearly so professional as that - instead, I expect it to be more of a chronicle of my development endeavors.

This site was, until very recently, completely handwritten. The files I typed up were the ones that were served by my host. I did this intentionally - I have grown very weary of single page applications and mountains of JS slowing down sites. I get more than enough of that in my day job - I would prefer my personal projects to be lightweight and elegant. I am very happy with how little JS I have used in this site; several pages employ no JS at all, and the others mostly just use it for tracking more complex mouse interactions.

Of course, manually maintaining a blog in this fashion quickly becomes burdensome - so I have acquiesced somewhat and conscripted Zola as my static site generator. There are several dead branches of my repo with attempts to try 11ty and Astro, but these both failed to allow me to maintain the file structure I wanted, where the markdown content and html templates could coexist in the same directory. I don't fault any of these generators for failing to allow this - but given the fact that most of my pages involve large amounts of one-off, custom HTML, I would vastly prefer to keep my templates alongside my content. Even Zola fails to allow this by default - in a move that has been described by friends as "gross" and "one way to do it", I had to simlink my templates folder to my content folder to get it to play nice.

All in all, though, I think this site is shaping up quite nicely. I have a laundry list of things I'd like to add someday, but that's for another time, and another post.