Sometimes I’ll… hmn, how to describe, use certain twists of language or hints in order to come off one way or the other.

Someone once asked, on a post, “wait, is that a period joke?”  Yes, yes it was.  It was also several other jokes simultaneously.  But that has a certain weight to it in peoples’ gender reading intuitions.

Anyhow,

Avatars have a powerful effect on how we read people online, and lead to us making various subconscious assumptions.  Don’t worry though, I didn’t choose my avatar as a ‘gotcha’ to trip people up with.  

In an environment where gender presentation is much more of a choice than it is elsewhere, it also becomes part of communication and describing one’s intent to others, just as @wirehead-wannabe‘s rat avatar gives off a certain vibe about him, and @argumate‘s rotated pyramid is as frustratingly neutral as his posts.

So the avatar, too, is part of the message of this blog, an indicator of tone and so on, in addition to visual branding to make it recognizable and differentiate it from other blogs.

I will say that the grey is a deliberate choice as no real races are grey.  Yet.