Family

pixel art of a caretaker holding up a small softshell turtle in her hand to show an excited young boy with tan skin and a sunflower in his bright blonde hair. the caretaker has long hair and is wearing all blue, while the child is wearing a long-sleeved, pink shirt. behind her, a black australian retriever stares curiously at the turtle with one of her paws up.

Comments: back when I had a more active inner world, my brain would recreate any animal I had a meaningful connection with that passed away and place them with an existing family of alters. for a while, I thought that these recreations were alters, though the kind that could not front. now, I think they're more just things that exist to help me reconcile with the loss in one way or another. I wasn't ready to let go and needed some more time, or the death felt unfair and I needed them to have a better ending.

on another note, I think it's kind of interesting that the child alter in this always appeared to have mild rosacea, something I randomly developed in adulthood many years after discovering him.