lookin at a lil guy

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. they still exist, but it's not an ongoing thing constantly in the back of my head anymore. 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.